I am in Delhi for the India Public Libraries Conference (IPLC 2015 – India’s FIRST public Library conference) and Bookworm were in the honourable list of libraries with good practices, and on the side I went book shopping.
A must stop book shop for me, an out of towner- afraid of the big city is the Turtle Cafe and Book Shop in Khan Market. Is is the aroma of food and the smell of ink and paper, or is the cramped spaces where my ever growing larger self needs to manoeuvre between stacks of books or simply the comfort from a familiar store that causes me to end up at this book shop every time ? I do not have an answer to that, but I do know that I find some treasures which are all available online but picking them off a shelf is incomparable.
My picks for this week’s shopping are rather poignant books that must be read. I bought Michael Rosen’s Sad Book and I will never be sad about a book again. This is a masterpiece with Quentin Blake ‘realising’ the text and every page a stop – pause – think – love more , page ! And the theme is sadness, that very emotion some of us delude ourselves into thinking can be removed from life experiences. I await the next reader I can spring this book upon because as the book says , ‘Who is sad? Sad is anyone. It comes along and finds you .”
My next grab off the shelf is another book of tension and wonderment. House Held Up By Trees by Ted Kooser and illustrated by Jon Klassen ( of THIS IS NOT MY HAT creative gift) . I am not sure yet, what to make of this book, suffice to say the illustrations and the layers in the story line are strong enough to evoke responses, to raise questions and to also be silent and reflect.
With books of this quality, calibre and intent, it is no wonder that my refuge is the library and my world lies more and more in picture books!
Book cover courtesy: Amazon.in
Vasant
This is good work. Keep going strong bookwormgoa! Kudos.