On Books

and the pleasures of acquiring them

On Sunday I ventured out a restaurant in Thamel where I enjoy their very un-authentic but delicious fajitas. Before my meal, though, I popped into the Kathmandu Guest House to return a book I’d borrowed from their mini-library… quite some time ago.

I found the books have migrated from off the garden to a little room that also hosts an art space of sorts: it’s become quite a large book swap area and if anyone is reading this from Kathmandu I highly suggest stopping in.

No, I wasn’t going to take another, but I spotted a slightly battered copy of one of Paul Theroux’s epic train travel books that I didn’t have yet—and in my favorite imprint. Yes, it came home with me. And yes, I’m nerdy enough to have preferred imprints of authors I like 😊.

After enjoying those fajitas, I popped into a bookstore a few shops up from the restaurant. There aren’t as many bookshops in Thamel, the city’s main tourist area, as there used to be, and I have fond memories of happy hours spent in several that have closed for good. Two were completely destroyed in (separate) fires, one closed after the incredibly knowledgeable old owner died, others just weren’t there the next time I walked back through and I never learned why.

Happily, some are still around, and there are more up-to-date new books being sold than there used to be, which I’m certainly grateful for.

There’s still a special place in my heart, though, for the tightly packed shelves and surrounding stacks of used books, usually found it the farthest corners of shops with the new, plastic-wrapped offerings on display out front.

Moving piles, selecting, discarding, going back, discarding again, fingers going from grey to black as the dust finds a new home. Finding an unexpected treasure by an author I love, a book I’ve always meant to read, or a choice made purely on the basis of an interesting cover.

I’ve got a weakness for older paperbacks with classic or wacky covers. So Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire joined my library, a small tear on its cover but otherwise in beautiful condition. It falls under both the categories of paperbacks with classic covers and authors I’ve never read and want to try.

It seemed curious that the book, a 1977 First Ballantine Books Edition, should have

THE 5 MILLION COPY BESTSELLER

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

in block letters across the top of the cover, when the book was only published in 1976 and a quick Google search confirmed what I knew, that the movie came out much later—1994. A dive down the rabbit hole and I learned about its early purchase and eventual languishing in development hell (apparently a real term!).

Of the many things I love about books, it’s their physicality and the way they take up space in the world and carry their own history in them, whether read or unread.

**

This was a sober shopping jaunt, but—and I hope I’m not alone here—I’ve also been known to drunk-buy books. I make a concerted effort to not do this online any longer, because a book arriving in your mailbox that you can’t recall why you wanted is not a cheap hobby if you make a habit of it.

I won’t apologize, though, for the occasional time I’ve been in Thamel drinking late with friends and spotted a bookstore still open, waking up the next morning to the pleasure of discovering what I’d thought was so essential the night before. Hits and misses, but when they’re second-hand purchases, an affordable vice.

Worth getting your fingers dirty for.