So I write a lot (too much?) about the book situation here in Dubai. The selection can be defined by two problems: A, there isn’t much, and B, it’s expensive. I could whine about either of those problems all day, but instead I will tell you about my strategy.

            This is to wander through the store looking for the biggest, thickest, most interesting-looking book I can find. If it takes me a week to read, has color pictures, and gives me some interesting tidbits about, say, trade routes between Persia and China in the first century, than I will grit my teeth and spend the equivalent of twice the US cover price. (Yes! Twice! It’s insulting!)

            What I’ve found is that, while it’s easy to wander through a bookstore and gather an armload of books, it’s much harder to pick just one. After an hour, I generally find myself sitting in the back aisle, bouncing a cranky baby on one knee while staring at five hundred dirhams’ worth of books and trying to decide: do I want the Maxfield Parrish- illustrated Arabian Nights? The book about Mughal-era Indian art would be an excellent reference, but maybe it’s too heavy to ship home? What about the book on the rise and fall of the de Medici family, with the color plates of Botticelli portraits? How long will The Complete Jeeves Stories last me? If I buy the Jane Austen biography, will it be more entertaining than The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wagner? Is the Illustrated Guide to Cuban Tiles a “want” or a “need”? Obviously, this is a pretty poor strategy; it’s no wonder that I sometimes leave without anything at all.

             Last week, after I managed to narrow my choices down to one, and emerged exhausted, broke, and trembling from the bookstore, a thought crossed my mind: I WILL NEVER TAKE PUBLIC LIBRARIES FOR GRANTED AGAIN. People in my future, I am counting on you to slap me if I ever complain about late fines, inter-library loan fees, or mis-shelved books ever again.

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