By Ami Shah
The summer before starting at NCSSM, I went to India to visit my grandmothers. We planned the trip 6 months before I was accepted, so I did not plan on doing anything but connecting with relatives. After a month of me being there, my dad let me know of my reading assignment for the summer. Now, I am in Bombay, without the ability to look for a large bookstore, and I am told to read 2 books: The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper and The Americans by Daniel Boorstin.
How in the world am I going to find these books in Bombay?! This is Bombay in 1980. There was no Barnes and Noble or Borders books! We had street vendors that placed books on a sheet and that is where I bought books. Occasionally there would be a small neighborhood book store with a limited number of books. Usually, we would find a romance novel, or an Indian epic or religious book: but there was no way I was going to find The Pioneers or The Americans! I was panicked as I was heading to this new school one week after I returned to the US!
After my 3rd tiny book shop, I found success! The Pioneers! True luck! The book was not that bad: I read it in a week, all 132 pages! I was only worried that I had not found the other book.
As I started on Miller’s English lit. pop quiz, on The Pioneers; I was going to nail it, as I actually read that one. Of the 6 questions, I only knew 2 of them! How could that be. Little did I realize that the book I found in Bombay was actually the Readers Digest version of all of the James Fenimore Cooper novels! Oh well, at least I tried: A for some effort!
No comments:
Post a Comment