A MID-WEEK BOOK HAUL
Yesterday, during the lunch hour, feeling restless I went to the Best Book Center at Lakdi-ka-pul. It is perhaps the first second hand book store in Hyderabad and one of the largest with thousands of books displayed in two large rooms. Normally it takes a couple of hours to browse through all the racks but yesterday I took a quick tour of the storeand came up with two good finds- one a book by Peter Mayle- Up the Agency and another a delightful book on punctuation- ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ by Lynne Truss which rocketed up the bestseller list when it was launched a few years ago. I found this latter book in a dramatic way.
I noticed ‘Up the Agency’ in the first rack itself and it was a book I had listed in my own short list of books to be read. I have Peter Mayle's other books I found over the years- ‘A Year in Tuscany’, ‘Toujours Provence’ and the book I found last month- ‘Acquired Tastes’. As an ex-copywriter like Mayle I was keen to read this book about life in advertising. I got this book for sixty rupees.
As I was leaving with Mayle's book, my eyes fell on a book with a bright yellow cover. The title grabbed my attention. It was a book I was looking to find in a second hand book store- ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ by Lynne Truss. It was an Indian edition and priced at Rs 195, and on the back of the book it said the original price of the book was Rs 850. But I got the book for only Rs. 60 i.e., at less than one tenth of the original price. The book was in good condition with no inscriptions inside. I felt lucky to find it so unexpectedly and at such a low price.
The rates of the books in these second hand bookstores are more than what you can expect on the pavements of Abids on Sundays. But they don't keep these sort of books on the pavements either.
Yesterday, during the lunch hour, feeling restless I went to the Best Book Center at Lakdi-ka-pul. It is perhaps the first second hand book store in Hyderabad and one of the largest with thousands of books displayed in two large rooms. Normally it takes a couple of hours to browse through all the racks but yesterday I took a quick tour of the storeand came up with two good finds- one a book by Peter Mayle- Up the Agency and another a delightful book on punctuation- ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ by Lynne Truss which rocketed up the bestseller list when it was launched a few years ago. I found this latter book in a dramatic way.
I noticed ‘Up the Agency’ in the first rack itself and it was a book I had listed in my own short list of books to be read. I have Peter Mayle's other books I found over the years- ‘A Year in Tuscany’, ‘Toujours Provence’ and the book I found last month- ‘Acquired Tastes’. As an ex-copywriter like Mayle I was keen to read this book about life in advertising. I got this book for sixty rupees.
As I was leaving with Mayle's book, my eyes fell on a book with a bright yellow cover. The title grabbed my attention. It was a book I was looking to find in a second hand book store- ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ by Lynne Truss. It was an Indian edition and priced at Rs 195, and on the back of the book it said the original price of the book was Rs 850. But I got the book for only Rs. 60 i.e., at less than one tenth of the original price. The book was in good condition with no inscriptions inside. I felt lucky to find it so unexpectedly and at such a low price.
The rates of the books in these second hand bookstores are more than what you can expect on the pavements of Abids on Sundays. But they don't keep these sort of books on the pavements either.
2 comments:
Hi Vinod, I've been trying to locate this store, could you point to any landmarks nearby, or the nearest intersection. Thanks!
Best Books is near Ravindra Bharathi, opposite the office of the DGP. Good luck.
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