My favorite writers are Martha Grimes and Colin Dexter. Nobody writes like Grimes, who’s American but sets her crime mysteries in England.

Unfortunately, Grimes and Dexter, who’s true-blue English, have stopped writing, I think permanently. I keep going back to the bookstore in Baguio where I first found them years and years ago, where their genteel crime mysteries were advertised under the headline, “We make reading affordable.”

As it turned out, the store was owned by a classmate who was never in the same class. (In UST’s smallest college of 500 students, the boys reported for class after 5 p.m., which was the time we girls were dismissed from our last class.)

If I’m sounding sentimental, is it because Grimes and Dexter are no longer writing, or because that classmate’s brainchild is no longer an only child?

“Previously owned books” as they are sold in the Philippines are sourced from public libraries and private collections abroad. With a few questions here and there, I saw the picture emerging of our local, enterprising entrepreneurs receiving from reliable sources their regular/weekly batches of books, sometimes as many as 100 copies per shipment, and yes, they get sold, fast, to old as well as young customers. (My latest acquisition is a book of nursery rhymes, with elegant illustrations in color, for a grandchild. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he won’t find the book too childish for his taste.)

These days, a book is priced at less than ₱200 for a paperback to more than ₱700 for a hardbound. In the old days when we were young, you could buy a paperback for less than two pesos! But then those were the days when going to the movies, orchestra, cost ₱1.20 for a ticket.

This summer, let’s not add one more degree to the ground temperature, no need to rue inflation and how it might ruin our teachers’ chances of buying new books to keep up with the times, especially when the subject being taught is modern lit. Staying home with a book or two and reading in the coolest part of the house with an ice-cold drink within reach could be a cheap way to beat the heat, especially if you won’t need anything to munch on.