Bookstores (oh, and porn, too)

I like reading.  I like reading so much that I will often gobble down two or three novels or big books a week about anything, ranging from health, economics, science, psychology, travelogues, etc.  Naturally, one of the first things I did when I arrived in Ulaanbaatar was track down all of the bookstores listed in my Lonely Planet.  Let me just say that the selection of books here is even more dismal than LP made it out to be.  The first bookstore I visited ("Books in English"), had a disappointing, tiny selection of out-of-date magazines (like, I mean, from 1996!) and extremely used books that weren't even particularly interesting, anyway.  The next bookstore I visited was not much better, but that was actually okay because I still had two more bookstores to visit.  Librairie Papillon is listed as UB's finest bookstore, although most of the selection is in French.  That's actually okay, because I can read French.  It's my second language.  I was kind of looking forward to reading French books this winter and improving my French vocabulary and grammar from all the French I planned on reading.  But when I got to Librairie Papillon, I found that, while Lonly Planet was correct in asserting that this is possibly UB's greatest bookstore, the selection is still pretty abysmal.  Yes, there were books in French, but the selection was not as great as what Lonely Planet made it out to be.  The wall of German books looked about as interesting as the French selection (actually, possibly even more interesting-- but that might be only because I couldn't understand half of the titles in the German section).  There was also a backroom full of cheap classics in English (you all know the kind-- they've got navy blue covers and they cot about 5-10bucks, but if you can help it, you probably usually buy a nicer-looking edition from a different publisher with slightly bigger, more reader-friendly fonts).  Let me say, I was disappointed with this one as well.  There was one final bookstore to check out, Xanadu.  LP said that this one had a small selection, and that it also carried a small selection of LP titles.  When I arrived, I found that Xanadu does, in fact, carry a selection of LP titles, but they're mostly all out-of-date (by one or two editions!), and if you're interested in reading anything other than travel guides, if you're shopping at Xanadu, you'd better be /really/ interested in books about Mongolian history and culture, cause that's all there is!!  Thank god (lower-case /g/, intentional) my younger brother bought me a Sony bookreader for Christmas-- I guess I'll finally be making use of that.  And I miss my old bookstore that I used to frequent in Seoul-- What the Book-- I used to go there just to breathe in the smell of books and look at all the knowledge and stories I have yet to read!

I did find one other bookstore in Ulaanbaatar, although it wasn't listed in the Lonely Planet.  I don't really understand why it isn't listed, because it's a hella cool bookstore.  It's called the "Mega Hi-Fi Store" or, alternatively, "The Original Bookstore" and it's on Seoul Street.  This store has a better selection of books, although they're entirely in Mongolian.  Actually, they do have a small selection of guidebooks (you know the kind that are full of glossy, colour pictures and 3D-type maps that are really pretty to look at, but not terribly practical to actually bring traveling with you), but they were not Lonely Planets (this, I suspect, is why this bookstore is not listed in the LP).  It also carries a few copies of Time and Newsweek (although, the last time I went there, I noticed that at the top of the Times, there was printed "Subscriber Copy-- not for resale"), but what I found much more interesting was the Mongolian porn.  I'm not a pervert or anything, but I had to stop to take a photo of the Mongolian porn.  Then, I had to flip through, and I found some totally awesome porn cartoons (like what you would find in the newspaper, but, you know, porn).  Then, I sucked it up and bought a couple of copies to send to my bro for Christmas.  It was kind of awkward, because it was very male-oriented porn, and I'm definitely a woman, and I didn't explain that it was for my brother because I didn't think the girl would understand me or believe me, and anyway, buying porn for your brother in kind of creepy in its own right.  I only bought two magazines and each magazine is worth 2500 Tugrugs, which is about $1.95 in Canadian money!