Books. In paper form, their days are increasingly looking numbered. And I have found myself hesitating before buying books in the past few years. They are not cheap. Especially design book. But more importantly, I find myself accumulating books that go partially or completely unread. There is so much to read for free on the web. The iPad has even invaded bathroom and bedtime reading. Then there is eBooks. Paper books are clearly on the retreat. Why buy paper books.

But, a 50% off sign on a bookstore is hard to resist!

As I was leaving Amman’s Baraka Mall with my wife and eldest son (after watching the new Sherlock Holmes movie) that 50% sign drew us into the Prime bookstore like a magnet.

What started as a small pile of books quickly turned into a full scale book buying binge. I decided that the first business decision of 2012 for SYNTAX would be an upgrade of our office library which recently has been getting pretty dated.

Now mind you. Prime books seems to be closing down or something like that. They obviously want to sell their stock and the shelves certainly look like they are not being restocked. And from what I saw, no book was more recent than 2009. But at 50% off, it was just too hard to resist to keep on piling on one title after the other.

It’s actually sad that the glory days of Prime Megastore are over. When they opened in Mecca Mall, it was, for me, one of the best things that ever happened in Amman. I covered its opening in one of my early blog posts in 2004 on 360east.com.

In any case, as our work takes on in increasingly architectural nature, designing cultural/art spaces, workspaces and corporate interiors, I though it would be cool to add a heavy dose of architectural books to the mix.

And I finally got that huge Le Corbusier book!

A good start of 2012, don’t you think?

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