It was a simpler time. At least for a few old-fashioned readers like yours truly.

One of the joys of the weekly reading schedule meant darting across to the friendly neighbourhood lending library. In a mostly dusty, cauldron-like space, piles of books would be stacked, may we add, in random order, neither alphabetically nor genre-wise. Archie comics, Enid Blyton, Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha, Target, Sci-Fun (both discontinued), the Asterix and Tintin series would vie for shelf space along side the “grown-up” books that ranged from Agatha Christie, Leon Uris and Robert Ludlum to James Hadley Chase, and the very sassy Mills & Boon.