My first visit to a comic bookstore

It took a long-haul flight from Mumbai to Vancouver for me to finally visit a comic bookstore I’d only read about online and watched with envy on The Big Bang Theory.

The comic bookstore I went to was on Vancouver Island, in a small, charming place called Coombs, within the district of Nanaimo. Coombs, as you might know, is famous for its Old Country Market—more popularly known as Goats on the Roof—where a family of goats actually lives on the low sodded roof. It attracts over a million tourists every year, apparently.

The comic bookstore, as it was simply called, was a single room and not very big. Its walls were lined with storage racks holding dozens of white boxes filled with comics in polyethylene bags, each neatly labelled with the names of superheroes on the side.

When I went in with my family, the place was nearly empty. A young man, presumably the owner, sat at a counter watching something on his phone, while a couple of kids were noisily sifting through trading cards in the centre of the store. I practically had the comic bookstore all to myself. I wandered through the shelves, looking for my favourite characters from DC and Marvel, and other imprints. They were all there, and some not so familiar ones too.

With help from my family—since the boxes were quite heavy—I went through hundreds of backdated comic-books, mostly Superman and Batman (my childhood heroes), the Hulk, Flash, Daredevil, Captain America, Punisher, Justice League, Fantastic Four and the Avengers. I picked out several, put them back and then took them out again. Being spoilt for choice wasn’t easy. There were so many old titles, I wanted them all.

At one point, I decided to collect the multi-part Superman: Funeral for a Friend special series I had always wanted to own. With more help from my family, I spent over an hour searching for all the parts but came up three short. In the end, I dropped the idea and settled for the equally prized Reign of the Supermen! 1993 series instead.

I suppose you could say, “You lose a Superman, you gain a Superman!”

Some three hours later, as I was paying for my stack of comic-books, I suddenly realised I hadn’t seen two other favourite characters from my teens—Tarzan and his son Korak. They were there, all right; I had somehow missed them.

After the owner pointed them out, I got down on my haunches and quickly went through a couple of boxes of early Tarzan issues with their vintage-smelling covers, my comic-book antennae tingling with excitement for a second time that evening. Unfortunately, we were running late, and it was with some reluctance that I put the ape-man back in his box.

Comic-books have brought me endless joy since my school days, and visiting this little haven felt like a dream come true. I’ll be going back to Coombs again, hopefully in the not-too-distant future—for the comic-books and, of course, the goats on the roof.

Short Story: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, 1890, by American writer and poet Ambrose Bierce is the poignant and haunting tale of Peyton Farquhar, a well-to-do planter and slave owner sentenced to hang by Union soldiers for attempting to sabotage a railroad bridge in northern Alabama during the Civil War.

Farquhar, described as a secessionist and an ardent supporter of the Southern cause, is minutes away from being executed on the bridge. But just as the noose tightens around his neck, he has an epiphany of sorts—an intense vision of escaping his captors, falling into the river below, swimming against the currents and bullets, reaching the opposite bank and tearing through the woods to finally make it home, to his wife and children.

One can assume that Ambrose Bierce, a Civil War veteran, draws from his own experience to paint a vivid picture of Farquhar’s illusory run for freedom—and, in many ways, his desperate, real-life, yearning to survive the war and go back to a normal life with his family. In that sense, the author masterfully—and poetically—blurs the line between reality and imagination.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is as much a story about the tragic plight of Peyton Farquhar, the soldier, as it is about the brutality and futility of war—in fact, all wars. There is no dignity on the battlefield, neither in victory nor in death. That’s how I interpreted the story and its ending.

A well-crafted and thought-provoking story. One I will be sure to read again in the future.

Post-story, I read that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was originally published by The San Francisco Examiner in July 1890, and was part of Ambrose Bierce's book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians a year later. It is considered one of the most famous and frequently anthologised stories in American literature. The short story has also been adapted for film and television.

Film Movie: A Stranger in Town, 1943

MGM's A Stranger in Town will hopefully be the first of many classic films I'll be watching in the days ahead. For now, it's a plan, and as far as plans go, I hope I can stick to this one. I picked a good one to start my classic-film adventure.

Directed by Roy Rowland, whose films I'm not yet familiar with, A Stranger in Town is a political drama where "small town meets big justice". But there's a twist: the story is less about politics and more about wit and wisdom.

It all starts when US Supreme Court justice, John Josephus Grant (actor Frank Morgan, the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz) goes on a quiet vacation—duck hunting, actually. But the absence of a proper license unwittingly lands him in the middle of a small-town power struggle, a mayoral election, that wasn't on his agenda.

The justice, who hides his true identity and goes by the name of Joe Grant, finds himself rooting for Bill Adams (Richard Carlson), a young, honest and somewhat naïve lawyer running for mayor against the wealthy and influential incumbent, Connison (Robert Barrat). Connison has the local judge, businessman and sheriff in his pocket, using them to get Adams into trouble with the law and tarnish his public image.

But Joe Grant, the affable, unassuming and quick-witted judge, has a trick or two up his sleeve and helps Adams turn the tables on the crooked mayor. He's aided in this venture by his trusted secretary, Lucy Gilbert (Jean Rogers), who falls for Adams.

The final scene unfolds in dramatic fashion as Justice Grant, the Stranger in Town, takes centre stage in a packed courtroom.

A Stranger in Town is a light-hearted, old-fashioned black-and-white film that's fun to watch, mainly because there's nothing sinister about the corrupt ways of the mayor and his sidekicks. I enjoyed the film as much for the three solid characters as for the slapstick humour, the harmless street-side brawls and fisticuffs, which add to its appeal.

Are we reading fewer books than we used to?

Is buying and reading paper books declining as a habit?  

It certainly appears to be the case in this digital age, where people are increasingly turning to e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts. E-books, in particular, are more accessible and convenient to buy, store and read.

As we do at every opportunity, my wife and I recently visited a book sale close to our home in suburban Mumbai. Under a large shamiana (or tent), there were hundreds of thousands of books—mostly paperbacks in near-mint condition—neatly lined in rows, their spines and titles facing up. As book exhibitions go, this one was quite impressive. The collection ranged from classic literature to contemporary bestsellers and everything in between.

Except for one thing.

The books seemed to be more on display than for sale. During our visit, most people appeared to be casual browsers, drifting in more out of curiosity than any real intent to buy. They would linger for a few minutes before moving on to other attractions—the colourful handlooms and handicrafts in the adjoining tents.

For over a decade now, the only people I regularly discuss books with are my family members and a few online friends who blog about the books they read. Almost no one in my immediate circle seems to be reading books. And if they are, I rarely hear about it.

Here are five reasons why people are probably no longer buying or reading books as they once did.

• Digital media—social media, smartphones and streaming services—offer constant entertainment and quick, short-term diversions, often displacing leisure reading.
• There appears to be a gradual decline in reading culture, particularly among younger generations, possibly due to reduced exposure to books within families and everyday life. My wife and I, like many of our generation, grew up surrounded by books, and they have stayed with us into adulthood.
• Many people say they simply do not have the time to read, citing busy schedules, constant multitasking, and long, tiring commutes.
• The attention economy—the digitally driven overload of information—may also be eroding sustained focus, making it harder for people to engage with long-form content such as books. In contrast, short-form content like posts, videos and stories is easier to consume and more engaging.
• Physical books are often perceived as less accessible and more expensive than e-books, especially in places where bookstores and libraries are limited. Bookshops and even secondhand bookstalls are also slowly disappearing, and not everyone can afford to buy books regularly.
  

While book sales may be declining, as people are either buying fewer books or reading less, they are still actively engaging with other forms of written content online—social media posts, articles, blogs and webzines.

This suggests that books are still very much present; it is our reading habits and preferences that have changed. It also means that my wife and I often have book fairs almost entirely to ourselves. And perhaps that is not such a bad thing after all.

Two debut thrillers and an exciting ebook

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and Shiver by Allie Reynolds were gifts from my daughter. She'd enjoyed reading both the thrillers and thought my wife and I'd like them too. Her choice of crime fiction comes with high recommendations.

The Silent Patient is described as "A shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive."

The blurb on the back of the 339-page book tells us about the story of Alicia Berenson who "lived a seemingly perfect life until one day six years ago (when) she shot her husband in the head five times. Since then she hasn't spoken a single word. It's time to find out why."

"They were all there. So which one of them did it?" says the cover of Shiver (Headline, 2021). The 425-page book tells the story of "A reunion weekend in the French Alps (that turns deadly when five friends discover that someone has deliberately stranded them at their remote mountaintop resort during a snowstorm."

The Silent Patient and Shiver are both debut novels and were to be developed as a movie and a television series, respectively; although, I have no updates about either of the ventures.

Carolyn Arnold's The Little Grave (2021) is the first Detective Amanda Steele book in what appears to be a series of ten books. The 324-page Kindle edition was available for free on Amazon. My thanks to the author.

This is what the book is about:

"It's been five years since Detective Amanda Steele's life was derailed by the tragic death of her young daughter. The small community of Dumfries, Virginia, may have moved on, but Amanda cannot. When the man who killed Lindsey is found murdered, she can't keep away from the case. Fighting her sergeant to be allowed to work such a personal investigation, Amanda is in a race to prove that she can uncover the truth. But the more she digs into the past of the man who destroyed her future, the more shocking discoveries she makes."

At present, I'm reading The Silent Patient in paperback and The Little Grave on my tablet.

Why I chose to give away my books

Each one of us has a unique relationship with books. We all have anecdotes and stories to tell about the books we buy, collect, read, hoard, and never read. Then, one day, something—I don't know if it's age, wisdom, or common sense—prompts us to do what once seemed unthinkable: downsize our collection. Give away books we have been holding on to for years. Free up space on shelves, in cabinets, and up in the loft. And start again, one book at a time.

At least, that was my plan.

I owned very few books in my youth, the years between 14 and 25 when I read the most books. In those days, I could finish a novel in two or three sittings, sometimes in half a day, and start another by night. I borrowed books from private circulating libraries, the British Council Library and the American Library. 

Then, somewhere down the years, career and family life took precedence. I stopped going to libraries because of the distance and lack of time, and instead started buying books—more than I could read. Not that anyone or anything stopped me from reading as I did before. Yet, somehow, I never quite read with the same intensity again.

Over the next three decades, I accumulated so many books that several of my mysteries, thrillers and westerns followed me to every new place of work. They sat quietly in office desks and cabinets, seldom getting a chance to tell me their stories. Then came the comforts and distractions of the tech age, and my goal of reading a certain number of books and short stories every month—in other words, reducing my TBR pile—went out the window.

About a year after the onset of the pandemic, I decided enough was enough. We were in the middle of a home renovation when I took stock of my collection and removed nearly two hundred books. I eventually gave them away to anyone who was interested or sold them to footpath booksellers at throwaway prices. 

I had little choice. Some of those books had remained unread for years. My logic was simple: if I hadn't read them by then, I sure as hell wasn't going to read them now. Fortunately, most of the books I weeded out were secondhand and didn’t cost a lot of money, though the parting did hurt for a while.

Now I have fewer than a hundred books, mostly paperbacks by some of my favourite authors and a small collection of nonfiction. Among them are a dozen books on the craft of writing by seasoned writers such as Stephen King, Francine Prose, Ray Bradbury, Anne Lamott, Benjamin Dreyer, Annie Dillard, and Bill Bryson. These are the books I return to often. They are my writing companions, offering lessons in craft, sharing the wisdom of experience, and helping me become a better reader and writer.

Over the past three years, I have made up for the "loss" of my books by buying ebooks or downloading them from public-domain and online libraries. I read them on my Kindle and Samsung tablet. I still buy paper books, of course, but no more than half a dozen a year. Most come from Amazon, second-hand booksellers, and book fairs, depending on what I happen to find.

The thing about de-cluttering books, to borrow a phrase from George Bernard Shaw in another context, is the illusion that it has taken place. No matter how many books we discard, there are always plenty around the place. I guess the only way to pare down our collections is to read books as soon as we buy them.

A visit to a book fair in South Mumbai

My wife and I frequently travel to South Mumbai, roughly 22 km (17 miles) from our home in the suburbs, to spend a few delightful hours among its art deco buildings, historical landmarks, art galleries and cultural scenes; walk along the sea-facing promenades; visit footpath booksellers and book exhibitions; shop on the causeway; and eat at traditional restaurants.

The island city holds a special place for us. We both grew up there. You can read more about our trip at our new website Pocketful of Happiness.

Here are a few pictures from a book exhibition that we went to. There were literally thousands of books–fiction and nonfiction, paperbacks and hardbacks. Most books cost no more than a dollar or two. We bought a few. The book fair was organised by Ashish Book Centre and held near Churchgate, which serves as the headquarters of the suburban Western Railway network in South Mumbai.

 

© All photographs by Prashant C. Trikannad