Old Books and Stores that Sell Them

There is something about old book stores that I can't quite describe. I don't know if it is the sight of piles and piles of books arranged in no particular order or the musty smell that old books seem to emanate or some other quality I just can't quantify. But its a good kind of "something" anyways. As a child, one of my happiest hours were spent among old books, picking out out bedtime tales and read-aloud stories. I have bought the wierdest of books from such places - Russian fables, Chinese tales with a moral, Ukranian short stories and many others.

Old books also have this nice feeling about them. I feel like I have a piece of history in my hands. "To Sahli, with love from Dev" - this kind of stuff make my day. I start wondering if Sahli and Dev were in love and if this was his first gift to her and in this vein, I can even build a blockbuster movie out of it!

Today I went to an old book shop in West Mambalam - quite by chance actually. It was nice to browse through oodles and oodles of books by authors I'd never even heard of. To be fair, he had a neat pile of books by popular authors as well - Grisham, Sheldon and the whole works.

What book did I want to buy? - Ponniyin Selvan which wasn't available
And what did I end up buying? - The Odessa Files by Frederick Forsythe. :-)