Today I went to two secondhand bookstores on the 12th street and Broadway. Strand, the first store where I went was huge. Saying huge is not enough. Imagine, a stand for book, having books on each side. Each side accommodating 7 rows of books and each row spanning some 3 metres. Fathomable...? Well, now in a room, there were about 20 such stands and the bookstore had 4 such rooms. Now, I wouldn't want to dive into the calculations and estimate the number of books. The site has made our life by saying that they have about 18 miles worth of books. Now that's a unit of measurement I have never come across!
I knew about Strand bookstore but I had never really gone there. I had earlier been to Housingworks bookstore in SoHo which is a really good place too. It's not as vast as Strand, but definitely boasts of a good many books. Coming from a family of thrift shops, it has this really great window for bargaining too. A sizeable portion of whatever money is earned here goes towards charity as the books that sold here arrive through various book donation programs.
And another book shop I went to was the Alabaster book shop. It was the best of the lot as it stocked a lot of authors whom I actually knew. Blame my ignorance but I like to believe this bookshop is where my home is if my home were ever to be a book shop.
I went to these bookstores with a person I met a few days ago. The person told me that killing time in these places is one thing on will never regret and spending time here discussing books and authors. Styles and preferences was an afternoon well spent. I didn't step out empty hand either. I bought two books -
Looking forward to completing these two books and going there again. I bought The Memory Keeper's Daughter from Housingworks which wasn't that great. Furthermore, its not one of the books I would like to be around in my "book shelf". I will most probably donate back to Housingworks where they can get a few more bucks by selling the book to someone else. Maybe that money will go to educate a disadvantaged child or rehabilitate an HIV/AIDS person.
The issue of being able to help someone indirectly is gratifying in a way because I might never be able to give money directly. For example, take Greenpeace. The other day, a guy and a girl hounded me near bryant park and told me about their agenda of stopping Mattel from getting land in Indonesia which would mean cutting down the rain forest. It's a great idea and while I fully support it, I can never come to donate money to them. Getting money out of me in indirect fashion would be the best way I guess...
I knew about Strand bookstore but I had never really gone there. I had earlier been to Housingworks bookstore in SoHo which is a really good place too. It's not as vast as Strand, but definitely boasts of a good many books. Coming from a family of thrift shops, it has this really great window for bargaining too. A sizeable portion of whatever money is earned here goes towards charity as the books that sold here arrive through various book donation programs.
And another book shop I went to was the Alabaster book shop. It was the best of the lot as it stocked a lot of authors whom I actually knew. Blame my ignorance but I like to believe this bookshop is where my home is if my home were ever to be a book shop.
Looking forward to completing these two books and going there again. I bought The Memory Keeper's Daughter from Housingworks which wasn't that great. Furthermore, its not one of the books I would like to be around in my "book shelf". I will most probably donate back to Housingworks where they can get a few more bucks by selling the book to someone else. Maybe that money will go to educate a disadvantaged child or rehabilitate an HIV/AIDS person.
The issue of being able to help someone indirectly is gratifying in a way because I might never be able to give money directly. For example, take Greenpeace. The other day, a guy and a girl hounded me near bryant park and told me about their agenda of stopping Mattel from getting land in Indonesia which would mean cutting down the rain forest. It's a great idea and while I fully support it, I can never come to donate money to them. Getting money out of me in indirect fashion would be the best way I guess...
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