It isn’t even wholly two months since Hyderabad got a new bookstore (Books & Beyond) and already there’s yet another bookstore that’s popped up about ten days back. Odyssey’s latest store is the newest bookstore Hyderabad’s got and it is easily the biggest bookstore I’ve seen. I was there on Tuesday though I had a glimpse of it from the outside a day before it opened. It is a couple of floors, the place and on one of them is the bookstore.
It was bigger than anything I’ve seen before with acres and acres of space as far as the eye could see. But for all that space there weren’t enough books filling it up. The shelves came up to shoulder level which gave the store a sense of even more space but they had nothing much different from what one could find at other stores. To be fair, all bookstores more or less stock the same titles but this seemed to have even fewer titles than a normal bookstore. I was disappointed with the choice on display. I couldn’t find a single Elmore Leonard title. Just Books and even Crossword have his titles. Too bad Odyssey failed my Elmore Leonard test.
But there was one book that made up for all the disappointment. Till date I haven’t seen a book on fountain pens in any store either in Hyderabad or anywhere in the other cities I’ve been. But last year I had found one in the Book Fair but in a stall selling second hand books. The book was Cartier’s coffee table book on fountain pens titled ‘Art of Writing’. When I looked at the price on the back I was glad. It was Rs 2700/- whereas I had picked up the same book (with a thin cardboard case) for Rs 350. There’s the sticker on the book in the picture. I had got the book for nearly one eighth’s of its regular price. Such are the joys of second hand book hunts.
There’s a Café Coffee Day outlet inside the new Odyssey bookstore, but without a separate enclosure it looks odd. ‘Brio’ at Crossword is really nice because it is separated from the store quite subtly. I hope they do something about it. If not CCD, then I was impressed by the range of fountain pens in the stationery store one floor down. There were Waterman and other brands. But since I don’t buy any fountain pen that doesn’t cost me a lakh rupees I did not find any to suit my range. I exited with neither book nor fountain pen in hand. Some day I will visit the store again. But I really wonder how many bookstores Hyderabad's got?
It was bigger than anything I’ve seen before with acres and acres of space as far as the eye could see. But for all that space there weren’t enough books filling it up. The shelves came up to shoulder level which gave the store a sense of even more space but they had nothing much different from what one could find at other stores. To be fair, all bookstores more or less stock the same titles but this seemed to have even fewer titles than a normal bookstore. I was disappointed with the choice on display. I couldn’t find a single Elmore Leonard title. Just Books and even Crossword have his titles. Too bad Odyssey failed my Elmore Leonard test.
But there was one book that made up for all the disappointment. Till date I haven’t seen a book on fountain pens in any store either in Hyderabad or anywhere in the other cities I’ve been. But last year I had found one in the Book Fair but in a stall selling second hand books. The book was Cartier’s coffee table book on fountain pens titled ‘Art of Writing’. When I looked at the price on the back I was glad. It was Rs 2700/- whereas I had picked up the same book (with a thin cardboard case) for Rs 350. There’s the sticker on the book in the picture. I had got the book for nearly one eighth’s of its regular price. Such are the joys of second hand book hunts.
There’s a Café Coffee Day outlet inside the new Odyssey bookstore, but without a separate enclosure it looks odd. ‘Brio’ at Crossword is really nice because it is separated from the store quite subtly. I hope they do something about it. If not CCD, then I was impressed by the range of fountain pens in the stationery store one floor down. There were Waterman and other brands. But since I don’t buy any fountain pen that doesn’t cost me a lakh rupees I did not find any to suit my range. I exited with neither book nor fountain pen in hand. Some day I will visit the store again. But I really wonder how many bookstores Hyderabad's got?
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Just a reminder of today's reading (Jeet Thayil) at the HCU at 4.30, if you're interested.
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