Book shopping

Yesterday, since Liz had left for the US and I suddenly found myself without anything in particular to do, I decided to do some book shopping.

My first appointed task was to walk to the offices of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) to buy a book of theirs on damage left on skeletal remains as a result of human rights violations.   I walked a number of blocks, made a wrong turn and found I was going the long way around -adding three more blocks to my walk- only to not be able to find the place.  I walked back home and found  that, whereas Google Maps had sent me to the tenth block of the street, the place I was looking for was on the third block!

After lunch, I caught a cab to downtown, and went looking for a political bookstore I had heard mentioned online.  I did find the place, but no one there knew of the bookstore.  I knew I was in the right place because it was an old building that housed the offices of one of Peru's Communist Parties, Patria Roja, and of the movement that arose from the recent anti-mining struggles in Cajamarca, the Movimiento de Afirmacion Social, led by Gregorio Santos.  The shop must've closed last year at some point, is my guess.

So, frustrated for the second time, I walked from Avenida Abancay to Plaza San Martin, to visit one of my favorite used book shops in Lima, the Libreria Georges Politzer, on Jiron Quilca.

There, I did manage to pick up an interesting set of bulletins published by the Chinese Embassy in 1974-1976 containing news summaries from the Xinghua News Agency.  I did not know that they put out such things, so I was rather pleased to find them -and to get the stack for just under 4 bucks!