The good people at Best Books sent me a text message informing me that their sale at YMCA Secunderabad would go on for some more time till October 15...I don't know why they wanted to extend the date...this time I found the sale boring...and managed with great difficulty to really ferret out the four books that I wrote about in my previous post...
During my first visit to their sale this time, I saw that they were setting up a kind of permanent second-hand (these days people use new coinages like 'once-used' and 'pre-used' and 'pre-owned' for the good old 'second-hand'!!!) books shop...Vinod also mentioned this in his post...but the shop was just about complete and books were scattered here and there...and I realised that the reason I didn't find books of any of my favourite authors in the sale hall was because they were all piled up here in this new location...
I think Best Books decided to set up a permanent shop in the Secunderabad area is because they feel their Secunderabad-based customers who visit their bi-annual sale at YMCA have now started visiting Frankfurt Foreign Book Sale a couple of kilometres away down the same road and M R Books further down Begumpet Road...and these two are permanent shops (almost!!)...
I didn't have much hope when I set out to visit BBS a second time this time...and as anticipated, I didn't find anything interesting (i.e., whatever I was looking for)...and came out hurriedly and saw that their 'permanent' shop at the other end (in the same compound) looked functional and went there...and here I started feeling comfortable...piles and piles of pulp...he he he...and I was confident that I would find at least some books...and I was not disappointed...but I was almost...until I spied two moderate piles of books hidden behind two slightly taller piles...aha...these two moderate piles of books were all Parker books...good only... and there were many Spenser series books...I put aside four so far un-read Spenser books from the two piles...Crimson Joy, Judas Goat, Mortal Stakes, and Sudden Mischief...
But was I happy?...no no no...I felt this was such a 'piddi' haul, taking my previous unsatisfactory visit also into account...but no more un-read Parkers in the two piles...I searched, but no Rankins either...neither was there any Peter Robinsons...I saw some Le Carres, but I had not done my homework...so, I didnt want to go for a blind shot...I went back to the now-considerably smaller Parker piles...and decided to go against form and pick up two non-Spenser Parkers...Trouble in Paradise and Night Passage...two Jesse Stone novels...I hadnt read any Jesse Stone novels before and I looked up the name on...what else?... wikipedia!!...and read that this fictional detective character is completely different from Spenser and a 'deeply troubled man'...and comparing Stone to Spenser, Parker said in an interview, "Jesse is a much more damaged individual who is coming to terms with himself as he goes along..." aah...that sounds promising...I kind of like Rankin's Inspector Rebus, another troubled detective...who chases trouble until it plunges is claws on his back and hangs on there...so, Jesse Stone is troubled!!! Chalo dekhte hain...I am just one nove...no, half a novel...away from finding out...
It is around eight days since that Parkeraul...and I have finished three Spenser-Parkers already and on to my fourth...Mortal Stakes...and then I go on to visit the 'troubled and damaged' Jesse Stone getting to trouble in paradise...
During my first visit to their sale this time, I saw that they were setting up a kind of permanent second-hand (these days people use new coinages like 'once-used' and 'pre-used' and 'pre-owned' for the good old 'second-hand'!!!) books shop...Vinod also mentioned this in his post...but the shop was just about complete and books were scattered here and there...and I realised that the reason I didn't find books of any of my favourite authors in the sale hall was because they were all piled up here in this new location...
I think Best Books decided to set up a permanent shop in the Secunderabad area is because they feel their Secunderabad-based customers who visit their bi-annual sale at YMCA have now started visiting Frankfurt Foreign Book Sale a couple of kilometres away down the same road and M R Books further down Begumpet Road...and these two are permanent shops (almost!!)...
I didn't have much hope when I set out to visit BBS a second time this time...and as anticipated, I didn't find anything interesting (i.e., whatever I was looking for)...and came out hurriedly and saw that their 'permanent' shop at the other end (in the same compound) looked functional and went there...and here I started feeling comfortable...piles and piles of pulp...he he he...and I was confident that I would find at least some books...and I was not disappointed...but I was almost...until I spied two moderate piles of books hidden behind two slightly taller piles...aha...these two moderate piles of books were all Parker books...good only... and there were many Spenser series books...I put aside four so far un-read Spenser books from the two piles...Crimson Joy, Judas Goat, Mortal Stakes, and Sudden Mischief...
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| 4 Spensers and 2 Stones |
But was I happy?...no no no...I felt this was such a 'piddi' haul, taking my previous unsatisfactory visit also into account...but no more un-read Parkers in the two piles...I searched, but no Rankins either...neither was there any Peter Robinsons...I saw some Le Carres, but I had not done my homework...so, I didnt want to go for a blind shot...I went back to the now-considerably smaller Parker piles...and decided to go against form and pick up two non-Spenser Parkers...Trouble in Paradise and Night Passage...two Jesse Stone novels...I hadnt read any Jesse Stone novels before and I looked up the name on...what else?... wikipedia!!...and read that this fictional detective character is completely different from Spenser and a 'deeply troubled man'...and comparing Stone to Spenser, Parker said in an interview, "Jesse is a much more damaged individual who is coming to terms with himself as he goes along..." aah...that sounds promising...I kind of like Rankin's Inspector Rebus, another troubled detective...who chases trouble until it plunges is claws on his back and hangs on there...so, Jesse Stone is troubled!!! Chalo dekhte hain...I am just one nove...no, half a novel...away from finding out...
It is around eight days since that Parkeraul...and I have finished three Spenser-Parkers already and on to my fourth...Mortal Stakes...and then I go on to visit the 'troubled and damaged' Jesse Stone getting to trouble in paradise...
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