After years of selling books and magazines, pavement vendors develop their own personal favourites

They sell you stories of undying faith, selfless love, hope and magnanimity. Most of them spend their entire lives on pavements or by the roadside, selling books, magazines and newspapers, at dirt-cheap prices. For cash-strapped students and booklovers on the lookout for great bargains, pavement booksellers are the last word in good deals.

But, what about their own choices, their personal favourites, their most-loved authors? Over a lifetime of selling paperbacks, do they develop a fetish for reading or is it just a means of livelihood for them? We posed this question to pavement vendors across the city and got varied responses. While some were revealing, even startling, others were staid and still some just plain unexpected.

"My favourites are Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne," says Anand Solanki, who's been selling books and magazines for the past 12 years in Camp. "I read when there's a lull in sales and not many customers are dropping by. These are just my personal favourites. There are many novels, which I may not have read cover to cover, but know everything about – from the plot to the lead characters," he adds. Pictures of Solanki and his bookstall were splashed all over local newspapers when famous writer Jeffrey Archer came over to meet him recently and spent a good 15 minutes at the small roadside shop. "That was a really good experience. Imagine such a well-known writer coming here," Solanki adds.

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