After visiting op-shops over many years and in many different locations, they have become reliable barometers of a town's wealth, both financial and intellectual. The volumes of near-new apparel, for which Padma has developed an uncanny eye, attest to a town's prosperity, while the range of second-hand books on sale is a good indicator of the intellectual depth and breadth of its inhabitants.
I never set my hopes too high when visiting Vinnies in Moruya whose bookshelves are in the main stocked with popular pulp fiction ranging from crime, detective, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and adventure, mainly for the male readers, to an absolute deluge of lurid romance for women only.
Only occasionally do I discover some little gem - non-fiction or high-class fiction - which Vinnies' 'Wayne the Bookwhisperer' has already learnt will be of little interest to the hoi polloi and won't exactly fly off the shelf.
With this in mind, he marks them down to a mere dollar which is exactly what I paid today for a copy of Paul Auster's "The Brooklyn Follies". Who reads Paul Auster in Moruya? Whoever it is, thank you and if you have any more, please, bring them in because I can't read enough Paul Auster. Of the many books he's written and I haven't read yet, I'm still looking for his two non-fiction titles "The Invention of Solitude" and "The Art of Hunger".
In the meantime, I shall spend the weekend reading "The Brooklyn Follies" which is set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000, and tells the story of Nathan and Tom, an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once promising academic career, and life in general. Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood, they discover a community teeming with life and passion.
