I didn’t always write useless little stories on a blog , instead I used the time to read a great deal and as of late I’ve found time to reacquaint myself with that pleasure. Inevitably my stash of unread English language books has quickly become a might thin.
Friends here in Colombia point out it shouldn’t really be an issue as they’ve often noted how well I read Spanish . What they don’t get is that just because I can read all the signs in the street with perfect inflection , doesn’t mean I know what the hell all those words actually mean . But I had spied a ramshackle used book store a while back on an old street .
The “Biblioteca de Libros Usado ” reminded me of many used book stores I’ve visited around the globe and instantly felt right at home as I entered to ask the proprietor….
” No hay libros en Engles ? ”
” Si Senor …. they are on the center shelf on the back wall .” ……. and so they were.
They turned out to be predominantly ” How to Speak English ” books but there was a gem or two to be found . One large volume was The HISTORY of LATEX but it had no pictures so I gave it a miss as I did the book explaining a religion I’d never heard of . All was not lost however as I forked over my pesos for a story about some Italian guy who lived in the 1830’s and a 1950’s Hardy Boys mystery .
I’ll have to try and read at a more relaxed pace, I mean if I plow through that Hardy Boys mystery too quickly I’ll be forced to go back for The History of Latex … if someone doesn’t get it first.
