Lets talk about books - part 1

This year I had the privilege to attend not one but two book festivals in two different cities. The first one I attended was in early January when I had the opportunity to attend the Chennai book festival with my kin. It looked a mega event with hundred of stalls and thousand of people thronging around but we had very little time in our hands due to some other commitments. We spent just over 30 minutes but still I was able to buy a few good books.

The first stop was at a comic book stall and to my surprise there were so many comic books for a very nominal price. I bought two english comics - one for me and one for my new-to-the-book-reader's-club nephew. I snatched this tamil comic book randomly but later found out I had read the exact same book during my school days ( in my fourth standard summer vacation days to be exact).

This is one of the first few books I have ever read in my life and I was stunned to see I recalled this particular page after all these years.I had something similar to a Anton Ego's surprise moment when I saw this page..

I remembered this page so well because that was the exact moment I understood the story of the book and was surprised with myself on my book reading improvement.Wow, what were the chances I would be picking the exact same book after all these years!!! When I read the book again this time, I found it to be a dud but during those early days it looked like a mega adventure to me.

The next book stall I stopped at was a used book store that sold English novels for a flat rate of hundred rupees each. I was surprised to find a Le Carre there(A man most wanted) and picked it and also bought the Sacred hearts novel as I knew I had seen postive reviews of that book somewhere before. I read it shortly after.Interesting premise and good story telling made for a quick reading.

I asked my bro to pay for the books with a promise I will pay back later but I still haven't and he hasn't asked and now I am happily going to consider them gifts :)..

Apart from the above, I also had a surprise gift offer from my sister. She offered a New year gift of my choice and asked me to pick anything I liked from Amazon. I picked this Le Carre novel (The Spy who came in from the cold) which I had been wishing to own for a long long time now. It was on a moderate discount and arrived in the first week of Jan but still waiting to be read..I must sure read it before atleast the next new year.