reading material

One of the challenges, living as an expat who has not yet mastered the local language, is finding a source of regular reading material.

Thanks to the mighty information superhighway, we can stay more or less up to date on current events. I listen to NPR. We read the online versions of American and European newspapers. Though I have to say that some, like the Washington Post, remain very clumsy and not user friendly in their electronic versions. We look at the Peruvian media, and an on-line English-language site called The Peruvian Times (http://www.peruviantimes.com/).

Savvy expats use electronic media to keep up on their fiction and non-fiction reading. They buy gadgets, like the kindle, and download books that way. We have not yet graduated to this technology. Maybe it's a good Christmas gift idea.

So, in the meantime we buy and read the old fashioned paper-based version of books and magazines. This is a little tricky. You can find books in English in Peru, but the stock is limited and the cost is high. Maybe it's just that we've become accustomed in the States to the availability of cheap and plentiful reading material. Still, when you do find an English-language book here, it tends to cost twice the price you'd expect to pay at Borders or some such place in the States. And if you're not in the mood for Paul Coelho or John Grisham, you may well be out of luck.

This is why when we heard about an English used-book sale taking place yesterday, touted as the best in the city, we made a bee-line for this semi-annual event. It was sponsored by the local Anglican Church, which sits on a corner in Miraflores, looking (to my mind) very American. There's a green lawn in front and it just feels like a lot of the churches you see on corners in residential sections of DC or my hometown of Lawrence, KS.

Anyway, the book sale was in a large room, complete with folding tables covered in dusty books, organized by genre, and smelling unsurprisingly like a funky old used bookshop. There were little old lady church volunteers. There was a bake sale. It was charming. Just like home - except the price; 2 books for 4 soles (just over $1). Here's our pile:

I should say that we also acquire books each time one of us goes back to the States (not very often). Britt just returned from DC with a nice pile, collected from friends, and for which we are very grateful.

We also pick up magazines when we travel. And I find myself craving stuff I'd never look at in the States. Trashy things like People or Vanity Fair. Suddenly these take on a charm they lack when you could just pick them up in the supermarket checkout lane anytime you want. We even subscribe to a few favorites (New Yorker, Mad). But getting mail here is unpredictable, so we order them through Britt's work address - which means we get them in odd batches, and only when he's not on travel (they pile up at his office when he's away). Still, even old news is welcome when you're far from home.