Ladies and Gentlemen, today I dedicated my time to ze bookhunt. I had two authors in mind: George Gilder, who wrote the wonderful Telecosm which I chanced upon a few weeks back but couldn’t finish and a prequel Microcosm which I’m told is even more spine-thrilling. Both are non-fiction works by an author who I’d like to club (along with Carl Sagan and Ayn Rand) as Thinkers. The other, a science-fiction author, Greg Bear. It seems my writing resembles his’, or so I’ve been told.

I live in a city that sports many book stores and libraries. Eloor Lending Library, right down the road from Spencer perhaps has the most extensive fiction collection in the city. It is costly, but for a book-lover like me, it is worth every rupee I pay (which is 10% of the sticker price for every book. Hint: Old books costs less.) On the downside, it is about as disorganized as my study table. It (hold your breath) doesn’t have a computer! The Librarians are about as clueless as they come, and they stared at me like I was from Mars when I spelt out Gilder’s name. I searched, in vain among the non-fiction section there, and having rooted out my patience, I went over to the The British Library. As does happen to me often, I’d forgotten my card <g> and so I decided to wrangle out a few hundred and buy the book. Unfortunately, the selections available are the of the pulpy variety, both at DC Books and at Continental where I spent many a fruitless hour searching.

Well, not exactly. I bought a copy of Digit, took 8 books from Eloor, and bought Cosmos by Carl Sagan and a Camus book from Continental.

Ze bookhunt was successful, yes.