A text book on probability theory sits atop the Sen and Dreze omnibus on hunger, famine and poverty. If one of them has to find my favor, at this point I have a hard time choosing. On the far end of my cheap Ikea "Mikael" series desk is a forlorn OED from the late 90's. It has traveled with me from its hometown bookstore shelf in Bangalore through my Delhi years and few miles further to the dry desert dust in Tucson, Arizona. Recently did the road trip to the other coast and now in DC. A long journey for a dictionary.
Disparate flyers are strewn around the desk - metro planner, a guide to DC museums and another pamphlet 'bike n ride' exclusively for enthusiastic bikers commuting on the metro. Two ferns seek attention. At least some water.
Deirdre McCloskey urges me not to overlook my human facets in her brilliant book "How to be Human though an Economist". I let it rest. Orhan Pamuk regaled me at bedtime reading a few nights before. Now all that his "Istanbul" prose can do is beseech me and leave me with a heavy conscience for ignoring his oeuvre. Any charge of me being unfair will stand no trial. My contemporary writer Coetzee has been sitting on the near shelf waiting over four weeks with at least four of his works, unread.
Although the pack of Montecristo Cuban habanos perched on my tallest book pile is getting lighter by the day.
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