Frankfurt...

... was awesome.

My legs hurt, with all the walking. And my hands hurt because of all the books I've been lugging around.

But it was worth it.

As a reader, this is one side of books you never see. And it is a complex, many-sided business with a million things happening every moment, all thanks to the Net.

A much-needed eye-opener.

Not to mention, much needed books :). and pre-release ones at that.

So you're reading "Girl with dragon tattoo"? I'm reading the sequel that releases in 2009! :)

Overdoing?

For a change, I read a book BEFORE everyone's hearing of it.

The book in question? 'Opal Mehta'.

Not having read the book which the author has supposedly plagiarised from, I still think far too much is being made of the whole issue.

If you think she's copied, don't buy her book.. Your dollars won't be added to her burgeoning millions.

But, should Harvard even be thinking of ticking her off for this? http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513035

If you're Ivy League, and your reputation is the base of all you have, and you've encashed it mightily all these years... I suppose all this trivia would matter.

Landmark Day!

Landmark's first Bombay branch opens today.

And it is half a kilometre away from my house. <Gloat> <Gloat>

Which means 2 things:
1) I will now be found residing there almost permanently
2) Landmark Quiz in Bombay soon!!! (Dare I hope for one next year?)

Great books and great quizzing <Grin> <Grin> :)

Of Books and Bombay

I'm Bombay born, Bombay bred, not to mention Bombay addicted. I've lived here for five-sixths of my life. Why then am I pining for Gurgaon which has been no more than the quintessential 'rainbasera'?

It's just that I have almost run through the cache of books bought in Delhi aeons ago. Reading them ever so infrequently, to make them 'last longer', hasn't helped.

Which made me realise that a fair bit of stuff I read is the 'crazy stuff no one's ever heard of'. Not too many Bombay bookshopwallahs, atleast. They haven't heard of Paul Gallico, for instance. Or Robert Heinlein. (Come to think of it, they've heard of Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Why this unfair treatment to the third of the Big Three?).

I found precisely three Heinleins here in over a year. And haven't found any of the Douglas Hofstadters or Jamila Gavins Delhi pals rave about. It isn't even in strange phoren authors that Delhi scores (though that may have been because of the floating international population)... it is also the Premchands and Amrita Pritams and Saadat Hassan Mantos....

My corner bookstore in Gurgaon was far more tuned to unusual books than even the Strand's here. Hell, I even found an interesting book from China at Nizamuddin railway station. My Bambai is losing out to the Dally.

To give Bombay a fair chance, Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Or looking in the wrong place.