Chiang Mai: Backstreet Books

Hubby and I have a fetish for used book stores. No, we don’t do the deed among the shelves of musty used books. It seems that whenever we are on holiday in Thailand, we end up searching for used book stores. It was the case in Bangkok where we’d end up almost on a nightly basis in Khao Sarn, making a beeline for this particular cart where books would go as cheap as RM10 or less. When we were in Chiang Mai, things proved no different.

And can you blame us? There are very few used book stores in KL, if any at all, well, if you don’t count PayLess Books. Chiang Mai and Bangkok, being the hub of Western backpackers, end up with loads of used books, hence the many used book stores that abound.

Scouting for used book stores is very exciting. Maybe it’s because we’re bookworms and nerds. There’s something about riffling through used book collections and stumbling across a title that you’ve been looking for but never wanted to pay more than RM20 for at home. Or happening upon titles you’d never thought you’d buy. Or like me, you could be scouting for erotica, which you would most definitely not find either at home or even in Singapore and ordering from Amazon direct to Malaysia would probably end up in your books being confiscated or mysteriously lost in the mail. You can, however, find loads of sex manuals at the WH Smith at Changi Airport (but there and only there, according to the cashier, as those books are not allowed into the island proper).

We checked out Gecko Books and Backstreet Books. Both are situated just outside of and on the east of the Old City. The latter is a haven. Run by an Irish guy who’s been in Chiang Mai for the last 13 years or so, their selection is quite extensive and they are cheaper than Gecko Books. The proprietor is also friendlier. So what did we pick up at BSB? I paid RM24 for a bumper issue of Jennifer Weiner: Good In Bed & In Her Shoes in one volume, practically a steal; an Alice Hoffman paperback for RM12, and Quiver, an erotica collection. Rizal unfortunately could not find the Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman novel that he was looking for but settled instead for a collection of erotica from Penthouse. Our entire collection cost us less than RM60. Hubby almost ended up with a draft/script of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Almost. He put it back on the shelf after he found the collection of erotica.

Mission accomplished.