Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you’d be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you’re going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn’t be there. Either that, or you’d confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.  

– Jodi Picolt, Handle With Care

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

“The best thing for being sad”, replied Merlin, beginning to  puff  and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust , never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

-T.H.White, The Once and Future King

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 1 Comment

image (5)edited

“Be it wealth, fame, career success, or a happy marriage, the nature of the goal itself is less important than identifying the heart’s deepest desire and- without question, fear or apology-going out to get it.”

– Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us, Rachelle Bergstein

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

DSC00415editededited

“In England things were topsy-turvy. The word couscous, though ordinary, was treated with reverence. Yet the word shame , though substantial, was taken quite lightly.”

– Honor, Elif Shafak

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

DSC00407edited

“Knowing that something is wrong and doing it anyway happens very often in life, and I doubt I will ever know why.”

– Who Could That Be at This Hour, Lemony Snicket

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

image (20)edited

“I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while- just once in a while- there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn’t, it’s just a disgusting waste of time!”

– Franny and Zooey, J.D.Salinger

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 5 Comments

Book Mark #1 – Adobe Bookshop

San Francisco has stolen my heart. This quirky, fun city gets better every time I visit. There are numerous coffee shops on every corner and tiny bookstores on every other street. The city has a vibe of its own. A vibe that is both hipster and high end at the same time. This forms for an interesting selection of people on the streets. I love people watching. People watching in San Francisco is ten times more fun.

Another thing about the city that I love is the used book stores. There are so many used and independent book stores. So I’ve decided that I would visit one book store every time I’m in the city and document it under the category ‘Book Mark’.

Adobe Bookshop

3166 16th St, San Francisco, Ca 94103

DSC00242edited

Adobe Bookshop is an adorable, messy little store nudged between a vintage shop and a Chinese restaurant. The store is long, narrow and the shelves overflow with books. The end of the store has a small art gallery for local artists to display their work. Like any other book store/library, there is a smell of old books and worn out pages in the air. They have a wide range of books, fiction, religion, sci-fi, children’s books, history, etc. If you look close enough you can find recent hard cover books for less than half the price.

Adobe is a very welcoming place.  The center of the store has various arm chairs and sofas arranged haphazardly for anyone to enjoy their afternoon siesta.

The store first opened it’s doors on January 2nd, 1989 and now after twenty four years they are on the verge of closing due to the high cost of renting. The older gentleman walking up and down, packing away books is, I guess,the owner. My heart broke watching him take books off the dusty shelves where they have resided for so many years. Shutting down any business is terrible. But seeing books being packed away feels like locking away all the stories that haven’t been told.

Although there was a 75% discount on all the used books and we bought ten books for only twenty dollars I was sad to see a book store run in to decline. I’ve only been to Adobe once but that was enough for it to find a place in my heart.

DSC00223edited

DSC00226edited

DSC00227edited

DSC00236edited

DSC00246edited

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

“Peter Walsh got up and crossed to the window and stood with his back to her, flicking a bandanna handkerchief from side to side. Masterly and dry and desolate he looked, his thin shoulder-blades lifting his coat slightly; blowing his nose violently. Take me with you, Clarissa thought impulsively, as if he were starting directly upon some great voyage; and the,\ next moment, it was as if the five acts of a play that had been very exciting and moving were now over and she had  lived a lifetime in them and had run away, had lived with Peter, and it was now over.”

– Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
– F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby