A Sunny (Bookshop) Sunday

I made a visit to Sunny Bookstore in Lucky Plaza, my first in a long while. I've been buying books from Sunny for more than a decade now and I've developed a close relationship with the staff there, especially Rachel, who is always quick to recommend anything new that has come in which she thinks I may find interesting. Rachel is always a great laugh with her eclectic tastes in fiction, not to mention computer games, anime and much else besides. Quite similar to me in that regard.

Admittedly, I haven't been patronizing Sunny all that much, having been lured away in part by the two mega bookstores Borders and Kinokuniya. It is also difficult to pop by now that I can't go on a weekend evening given that Sunny closes at 7.30pm which is de jure (if not de facto) working hours at MFA. It takes a rare Sunday or so for me to be able to pop in. Buying from Sunny has the advantage of slightly cheaper prices (offset by the discounts offered by the big two) as well as the fact that they plastic wrap the books for you for free.

I guess Sunny is an institution of sorts for me. It is really nice to go up the escalator at Far East Plaza and catch sight of the familiar opening with shelves upon shelves of books. And of course there are the same people there, Rachel and the rest, who have been there year after year. In some strange nostalgic way, I hope Sunny will be around for years to come, a familiar sight amidst the changing landscape of my own life and reading tastes.

Among my purchases today were The Children of Hurin by J.R.R Tolkien in a pretty hardcover edition with lovely illustrations from Alan Lee, Foundation, Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov which were newly reissued (strange that given my large SF colletion I never owned what is considered one of the classic Science Fiction series) and finally Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury - Bradbury is a brilliant wordsmith and his stories have always thrilled me. I own lots of individual editions but this was too good to pass up, even at 33 bucks.