Another Round of Bookstores and Another New City Magazine In Hyderabad

Yesterday again I dropped into two bookstores- a second hand bookstore and also a regular bookstore and came up with a good book- Pico Iyer’s ‘Global Souls’ which I found at the second hand bookstore.

At around tea-time yesterday I slipped out of office and went to Best Books Centre at Abids. I saw ‘Global Soul’ in the display and immediately had it taken out because I had a funny experience in this very shop a year or so back. I had entered the shop and noticed Syd Field’s book on scriptwriting and thinking no one would pick it up I leisurely browsed the other racks. A little later another customer entered the store and before my eyes picked up the book I had planned to buy. I tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t budge. I felt crushed at losing such a good book. I had wanted the book so badly that I had the book sent from the US by my brother.

So, yesterday I took the precaution of telling the guy at the counter to keep ‘Global Soul’ aside. After that, I looked around but couldn’t find anything interesting. I got Global Soul for Rs 195 which is a bit expensive but I didn’t mind because it was a fairly new copy and you don’t get many Pico Iyer’s books in Hyderabad. I haven’t yet finished reading his other book ‘Tropical Classical’ that I had found a couple of months ago.

Another City magazine hits the stands in Hyderabad- 'The Minaret City'
I went to ‘Walden’ at Begumpet in the evening to kill time while waiting for my friend. I found the latest issue of ‘Tinkle’ here which I couldn’t find at Odyssey a couple of days back. My kid loves to read it and needless to say I too enjoy it. (I’m a bit like Suppandi myself!)

I saw that another city magazine has hit the stands. Now the city magazine niche is getting crowded with three magazines vying for the reader’s attention. The magazine I saw yesterday was ‘The Minaret City’ and was priced at Rs 25. It looked okay to me though all these magazines are beginning to look similar with the same advertisements for jewellry stores and restaurants on their pages. It has to be seen which magazine leads the pack.

Walden is a big store with thousands of books on its shelves. It is a bit glitzy and doesn’t have the atmosphere of a serious bookstore overshadowed that it is by other items. But is the first big bookstore to open in Hyderabad back in the nineties and it remains at the top. Not my favorite though.