Books around us

On a half a block walk to the subway in the morning, I find a streetside book vendor carrying an esoteric collection. It includes outdated books on TCP/IP, Oracle suites, and Media tools for Macs, most printed before 2000. These volumes have dense text, technical jargon, block diagrams, glossary lists, all pointing to a sense of purpose, sense of value. The vendor who carries Gunter Grass, LPs and fragances besides, must think, "Surely someone must find these volumes useful." Alas.

A typical subway ride for me is short. I can't look far within the 3 ft X 3 ft personal space I get in the crowded train. Still, I catalog the reading material around me, newspapers folded into readable squares and books showing remnants of the dogears. This morning I saw a Tolkien, a Paulo Coelho (the only good book he wrote, ie., The Alchemist) and a book of not-so-easy Sudoku's. I idle my time doing a Sudoku, my trail randomly crisscrossing the trail of squares filled by the owner of the book who is busy with a pencil and an eraser.