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Arts & Entertainment

Author, Actor Shares Life at Inkwood Books

Author, actor and filmmaker Benjamin Busch entertained a small crowd at Inkwood Books on Monday night.

Benjamin Busch's soft spoken and philiosophical words on life are a stark contrast to the angry Baltimore police officer he once played on the HBO hit series The Wire.

Since March, Busch has been on a national tour stopping at every book store he could find along the way to promote his book, Dust to Dust, a complex tale of his life after a tour in the Marine Corps in which he returns to an acting career and a baby girl he'd never met before.

"The book is designed to give you my eyes and let you walk around with them for a while," Busch said. "The book begins when I come back from a tour in Iraq and it's on my daughters first birthday. Within a year, I'm back on the set of The Wire and I lost my parents. There is a sense of the end of my childhood and I began examining my childhood looking for my parents and what I found is me."

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The story of Dust to Dust is not exactly linear, as Busch often reflects on moments from his childhood as returning themes to his adult life. The book, he says, is designed to make the reader think of who they were when they were a child, how they got to where they are now and to get them fascinated like a child again.

"Everyone from the big publishing companies said they like the book but they don't know what to do with it," Busch said. "A thoughtful book doesn't sell itself in America, so I'm on tour to sell it myself. I've hit smaller bookstores than this and I'll tell you, you go to some small bookstores and they have the complete support of the community, and you go to a big one and two people show up. I like stores like this because in the end, if you reach one person, that's the goal. One more person is reading the book."

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Of the nine people in attendance, roughly half were fans of Busch's acting work on The Wire, a part that allowed the upstate New York native to make friends that he is still doing films with today. For South Tampa's A.J. Hurley, the book is now a priority read after meeting Busch and hearing what he had to say.

"I thought it was fascinating to listen to," Hurley said. "He's very philosophical, which I suppose is a bit of a surprise because he always played such an angry cop on the show. After hearing him speak and seeing who he is, I'm definitely going to read the book now."

On the other hand, Charles Martin, a Palma Ceia resident, had never heard of Busch or The Wire previously. He was simply in the right place at the right time on Monday to learn about the author and pick up a new read.

"I was in here shopping when the people who work here told me about this," Martin said. "This is great, I ran home and got my wife and came back."

Inkwood Books is Tampa's only independent book store and often hosts book readings and signings by authors. Next up at Inkwood, New York Times bestselling duo Iris and Roy Johansen will discuss and sign their newest book, Close Your Eyes, on July 26 at 7 p.m.

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