The weather was decent today. Dust clouds hung between the ground and the sky, and blocked off sunlight. This made it cool enough for me to finally leave my home in the evening. Cool, of course is a relative term- it must still have been more than thirty-five Celsius. That’s significantly better than forty-two plus, though, so why quibble?
I went to Basant Lok to see if I could obtain tickets for a Saturday show of X2 at Priya. If Priya wasn’t running X2, well, I would go bookshopping.
It wasn’t till I got on the bus (oh, how I just love route number 56) that I realised that I had only three hundred rupees, and not five hundred as expected. Not only did this make the buying of tickets difficult, it also restricted my options in book purchases.
Priya was in point of fact NOT playing X2 next week. So that choice was resolved- go bookshopping.
To my delight, Om Book Shop is running a sale all through June. 10% to 90% off on everything. 10% minimum, that is, 20% on most paperbacks, and higher discounts on a lot of stuff (such as cookbooks, which nobody ever really uses much, but which have such pretty pictures of food).
The only problem with this rosy picture is that I get a 10% discount at all times at Midlands Book Shop (referred to in W-Fillet #27) anyway. And Midlands has a much better selection than Om Book Shop. Sure, Om Book Shop has a big selection, but it’s erratic. It doesn’t have the obscure stuff you’re looking for. Don’t get me started on the Om Book Shop in South Extension, which only has obscure stuff that you’ve never heard of, and don’t want to read now that you’ve found it. You know, the ugly books printed on horrible paper about how evolution is a fraud and how the Koran is the only true authority on the creation of the Universe. At least Erich von Daniken writes well and has his books printed on nice paper.
Anyway. Back to the topic. I then went to Fact and Fiction, five shops down. I was in even more delight. The last time I visited Fact and Fiction, my taste in books was oriented in a slightly different way. This time, though, their selection ran perfectly to my tastes.
They had Dave Barry. They had about five Terry Pratchett books that I haven’t read and Midlands doesn’t have. They had Anne McCaffrey, the complete short stories of Roald Dahl, the Roald Dahl cookbook, Phillip Pullman, Richard Dawkins, and lots of those other science books-but-not-textbooks-that-make-you-really-understand-the-subject that are so cool.
Unfortunately, Fact and Fiction never gives discounts under any circumstances- the owner seems to be a little crusty- and so the cool science books are a fat 400 rupees at least. So is the Roald Dahl collection, and so is the cookbook. The Pratchetts are at Rs. 260. I get them at Midlands for Rs. 220. I know 40 rupees isn’t much, but what can I say? Midlands has spoilt me.
There was this female in there who was trying to interview the owner about Harry Potter V, and what he expected it to do for him. I’m unclear what capacity she was doing this in- whether she was a journalist or associated with a publisher or anything. The point is, the owner’s crustiness made it quite difficult for her to get a very good interview. The owner finally took pity on her, and called up his son and made her speak to him. The son was much less reticent, and the dame got her material. After that, the dame, the owner, and me all had a nice chat about how Harry Potter was encouraging people to experiment with other fantasy/ SF writers. I think I’ve mentioned before that I love to strike up conversations with strangers in bookshops. There’s something in the air. The happy result of this was that the owner promised to try and obtain some HP Lovecraft for me. So that’s good.
So, lots of stuff from the F&F shelves has now been added to my wishlist. Nice stuff. Books that I can really enjoy, appreciate, and assimilate (not necessarily in that order) over the next few years. But, alas, I don’t have much money to do it with.
I now have 4.6 kilorupees in hand. Of this, about 1 to 1.5 will be taken up by driving lessons, another 1 by movie tickets and transportation through the holidays (Did somebody mention Matrix Reloaded?), which leaves just about 2 for books. So. Time to prioritise.
Maybe I should start a wishlist on the site so you guys know what to get me for Unbirthday presents.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, no I didn’t actually buy anything today. It was just a scout and recon operation. 🙂