The book's the thing

Here are a few titles to take you through to summer

 

There is something so thrilling about a bookshop, isn’t it? There are all those authors waiting to be discovered, all those titles ready to be devoured, and a hundred different worlds that you can lose yourself in. For me, the high point of any trip to a great city is a leisurely trawl through all the book stores it has to offer. And last fortnight, that city was Singapore and the bookstore, Kinokuniya, one of my all-time favourites.

 

The first thing I discovered on the shelves was the latest Elizabeth George, titled Something To Hide, which came out last month, but whose release I seemed to have missed. I snatched it up and eagerly read the synopsis of the plot, happy to discover that this was another Inspector Lynley mystery. This was the perfect read for the flight back to Delhi, I thought. 

 

There was only one problem. This was an absolute doorstopper of a book and lugging it on to a flight seemed a bit of a challenge. So, with utmost reluctance, I put the physical book back and later downloaded it on my Kindle – with due apologies to all good bookstores anywhere.

 

But, I consoled myself later, it was the book that was important, not the form in which I read it. And if it’s reading that matters to you as well, here are some suggestions from among the books I have enjoyed over the past few months. Read them in any format that works for you – satisfaction guaranteed.

 

Something To Hide by Elizabeth George

 

This is vintage Elizabeth George, a murder mystery that is about so much more than murder or mystery. The theme that George tackles this time is the harrowing subject of female genital mutilation (FGM) that is ostensibly outlawed but practiced on the quiet by some among the Nigerian and Somali community in London. The murder victim, a police officer, has been ‘cut’ as well as a child though this fact only surfaces after her death. And the investigation into her death reveals so much more than just the identity of her killer.

 

Silverview by John Le Carre

 

Published after its author’s death, this has been touted as the last ‘completed’ masterpiece from Le Carre’s pen. This has all his usual hallmarks: there is a Smiley-type character (complete with unfaithful wife) who has been tasked with ferreting out secrets from an old retired MI6 hand. And there is a young investment banker turned bookshop owner who finds himself caught between these two spymasters. This is a splendid read in the Le Carre tradition but the somewhat abrupt end makes me wonder if the manuscript was ever, in fact, ‘completed’.

 

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

 

When Joy Delaney, a 60-something mother of four, goes missing, suspicion alights on her husband, Stan. It doesn’t help that Stan looks as if he’s been in a fight, though he insists it was only with a hedge. But as her disappearance lengthens, the children start to questions his protestations of innocence, and old family fractures come to the fore. Domestic drama has always been Moriarty’s strength but this book also works as a study of the everyday violence that women face.

 

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

 

It is the one mystery that Agatha Christie never solved. And that’s because she lived it. In December 1926, the mystery writer packed a small attache case and drove away from her home. Her car was later discovered in a ditch, leading to speculation that she may have killed herself, heartbroken because her husband, Archie, had announced that he wanted a divorce to marry his mistress. Christie was discovered living in a hotel a week later but she never spoke – or wrote – about this period in her life. So, this is the next best thing: a speculative take on what might have happened.

 

Both Of You by Adele Parks

 

Two women, who seem to have nothing in common, disappear in the same week. Both their husbands claim to be distraught, and insist that they know nothing of why their wives have gone missing. So, what went wrong? Did the women leave on their own? Were they taken by someone? When the investigation throws up a link between the two women, the story takes an unexpected turn with a twist you won’t see coming.

 

Chapter and verse

If you love bookshops, do your bit to keep them alive

I have always believed that you can tell a great city from the fact that it has some great book stores. New York has Barnes and Noble, a ginormous space on 5th Avenue where you could easily get lost as you made your way from the new releases to the classics section. Singapore has the best Kinokuniya I have ever been to, stacked with every book you've heard of or wanted to read (and then some). London has its hallowed Hatchards, a book store positively bristling with history, redolent of the heady smell of paper, and filled to the brim with titles both new and old.

Some of my best holiday moments are spent in such book stores. I could easily spend the better part of the day simply browsing the aisles, picking up an old book of poetry I last read in college to see if it still speaks to me, glancing through the first chapter of the new book by a favourite author, discovering new writers as I trawl through all the titles on display.

So it was only fitting that the last day of my summer vacation found me in the Piccadilly branch of Waterstones. This is one of my favourite stores, not least because it encourages its staff to put up little handwritten recommendation cards about the books that they have enjoyed (and you might conceivable like), but also because it has these capacious red sofas on every floor, where you can sit and read the day away without anyone coming and bothering you or asking if you actually intend to buy anything.

I always start my visit by revisiting my childhood favourites, all those Enid Blytons that I devoured hungrily the moment I got them out of the school library. I chuckle at the adventures of the Five Find-Outers or the Famous Five. I giggle with fond reminiscence as I glance through the Mallory Towers series. I delight at stumbling across such childhood reading staples as The Black Beauty (which I knew by heart at one point).

Then it's time to pay my respects to the books that marked my teenage years and early youth, now reissued with ever-more-fabulous covers. P.G. Wodehouse gets a look-in as does Georgette Heyer. I am, in fact, sorely tempted to buy the books all over again simply because they look so beautiful and elegant (talk about buying a book by its cover!) but manage to resist the temptation by sheer force of will.

I distract myself by going over to the suspense and thriller section where all my favourite authors live. And if I can find a Val McDermid or a Karen Slaughter I haven't yet read, it goes right into my little cart. Only then do I wander over to the new releases to check if there is anything worth getting my teeth into on the flight back home. Yes, I was disappointed by the last Daniel Silva, but maybe the new one, The English Spy, will make me remember why I fell in love with his writing in the first place.

This time, however, as I stood at the till, waiting to pay for my purchases, I noticed something odd. Though the store was positively heaving with customers, everyone was browsing but hardly anyone was buying. Ah yes, of course. The book store was just a place where people stopped by to draw up their wish list. They then went home and ordered the books online, saving about 20 to 30 per cent in the process. Or even better, they downloaded it on their Kindles, so that they could carry around as many as 20 titles at a time.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against buying books online, though I have yet to do so myself. And I do read my books on Kindle as well, especially when I am travelling and need to save on luggage space and stay within weight restrictions. But it kills me a little to see people exiting a book store without having bought even the cheapest paperback.

Think about it. If we all behave in this way, treating the book store as a pit-stop on the way to making an electronic purchase (or download), how long do you think the actual physical bookshop will survive? How long will independent book stores with razor-thin margins manage to stay in business? And even large commercial chains will have to reexamine if they want to stay in brick-and-mortar locations when most book buying takes place online.

If this trend continues, it is only a matter of time before the bookshop begins to wither and die away. And when the last one closes its doors, where will all of us, dedicated book lovers, go to get our fix of that heady perfume of paper and the printed word?

If that scenario alarms you as much as it does me, then let's take a pledge this Sunday morning. If you love books and reading, then make a resolution to buy at least one book from a book shop every month. It doesn't have to be a pricey hardback, even the cheapest paperback will do, so long as you buy it from an actual book store.

It won't make that big a dent in your budget, but for book shops everywhere it could well mean the difference between life and death.