BOOKS fascinate me. I am fascinated by books; all manner of good books. I will read any and every type of book. Sometimes I force myself to complete a book in order to do a review, but on many occasions, it is a pleasure to complete a good read. In my line of business, I come into contact with too many books. Unfortunately, this works to my disadvantage – I cannot ever read all the books that cross my desk, nay, even as much as I want to, I will not ever read all the books I come across in my line of work, limiting the ambit of my sway to physical personal contact with books.
And there are many good books in my pending tray, accumulating dust, showering me with guilt, especially when I make eye contact with the photo of authors on their books. 
All of this is by way of introducing you to persons with access to too few books, those persons who fully utilise and relish the opportunity to read a book from cover to cover. 
It was during the season when rubbish in the city was piling up that I witnessed the following incident: It was hot, and the stench from the piles was thick in the air. But I had to find a parking space within the vicinity of Bourda Market. (Well, what Joseph Bourda would have thought about the current picture is another story; story for another book or two, perhaps.)
The slot I squeezed my car into was next to the tail-end of a volatile rubbish heap. (Oh! That heap was adjoining a ‘health’ business; shush!)
Foragers were constantly covering the same ground, over and over. The discard of one person was the meat of another. Business was brisk, mostly bartering.
However, the activity of two tramps (forgive me, sir and madam, if I use the wrong term here to describe you; I know you can read and may take umbrage) caught and held my attention. My two tramps separated themselves from the hoard of hagglers and ensconced themselves on the pavement, adjusting their cardboard bed/refuge in a reclining position, a position to engage in the art of reading.
Books were their passion and prized possessions that spoke of treasures untold. Grudgingly, books were exchanged – one of this may be worth two or three of some other; they knew books, they were discussing authors…I was in awe.
I was fascinated enough to go in for a close-up; it wasn’t easy to encroach on their space. My two readers were jockeying to get the first read of a particular book – The Lantern Network by Ted Allbeury. There was a scuffle and the book fell away in pieces. Accusations of who was guilty were exchanged as they lovingly sought to put the book together again…until the very item they were fighting over brought them together again.
The front cover (and part of the book) was in the hand of one man, while the back cover and the other part of the book were in the hand of the other person.
Neither would give up his part to make a complete book unless it was rewarded with the first lieu on the book. Eventually, they started to compare notes. Neither knew of the writer Ted Allbeury, but both knew of Len Deighton, whose endorsement of Allbeury’s book was printed prominently on the book’s front cover.
From that, they deduced that that “is a bad book.” Both have read The Ipcress File by Deighton and were impressed.
Names of writers of the espionage were thereafter mentioned, some of which I am familiar with; others unknown to me (a bit of an embarrassment). The names of familiar espionage writers were Ian Fleming, John Buchan (Thirty Nine Steps), Jack Higgins (The Eagle has Landed), Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal). Sometimes the conversation overlapped into movies, film adaptation of books they have read.
After a while, one of the men grew tired of the wrangling over this book and others I couldn’t see. He sidled down onto his back on his cardboard bed atop the pavement and went to sleep, his head resting on a pile of books.  At peace with the world, dreaming of books and the world of books, the people who make books, and the people about whom books are made; ordinary people who made it to the top; ordinary people turned heroes…      
This was a wakeup call for me. I promised myself that as soon as I got home to tackle the pile of books resting on my head. And to appease my conscience a bit, I must say thanks to Fred D’Aguiar, Grace Nichols, John Agard, Mark McWatt, Clem Seecharan, David Dabydeen, Cyril Dabydeen, Peter Jailall, Janet Naidu, Lal Balkaran, Kumar Doobay, Sherene Noble, Miguel Neneve, Hazel Woolford, and many others for gifting me their (recent) works. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING
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