THE SUNDAY BOOK HAUL

TWO BOOKS AND A MAGAZINE

It wasn’t a good haul this Sunday because I did not find any new books. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to look carefully. But I managed to pick up two books and a magazine. Apart from thousands of books one can also find magazines of all sorts- Indian and foreign at Abids. One can find the latest editions of several good magazines if one has a sharp eye.

I look for ‘The Atlantic’, “New Yorker’ and travel magazines like ‘Conde Nast Traveller’, “National Geographic Traveler’ and such travel magazines as I love to travel and also write about my trips. (though there aren’t many posts on my travels here in the blog.)

THE FIRST BOOK

The first book I found in the usual heap of books selling for ten rupees was one that I found rather unusual. It wasn’t actually a book but more of a catalogue. It was ‘The Stephen H. Wakeman Collection of Books of Nineteenth Century American Writers’ published by the American Art Association. The book lists out First Editions, Inscribed Presentations and Personal Copies, Original Manuscripts and Letters of Nine American Authors- William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry W Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry D Thoreau and John Whittier. I do not know some of the authors but Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Longfellow and Thoreau are known names to me.

I got this hefty, hardcover book for ten rupees only. I bought it to find out what kind of books are sought by collectors.

THE SECOND BOOK- Somerset Maugham's ‘The Summing Up’

Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Summing Up’ is one book that started me on a strange habit of picking up books on writing by well known writers, writer’s memoirs and autobiographies. I pick up every copy of this book provided it is in good condition. This Sunday I picked up yet another copy ( my 4th copy, I guess) of this book at Abids for twenty rupees. It was an old copy but in reasonably good condition.

The copy I got was a Mentor Books edition which said it was a reprint of the original hardbound edition published by Doubleday in 1938?

The blurb says ‘…in a sense, too, this book is an account of the education of a writer, of the discipline and training that is required for the mastery of the art of the novelist, and of the self-imposed standards which Maugham has insisted on in his work- Simplicity, Lucidity and Euphony.'

It also says… 'The reminiscences of this unusual lifetime, inter-woven with penetrating insight on life and art, make this book indispensable for all writers and readers.'

Need I say more?

THE MAGAZINE- CONDE NAST TRAVELLER, NOV 2005 ISSUE

This magazine was a special issue of the Top 100- 2005 Reader’s Choice Awards of the Best in the World- Cities, Resorts, Islands, Hotels and Cruises. It was enclosed in a special plastic cover and was in pristine condition.

I picked it up for Pico Iyer’s essay ‘Finding Rio’ inside, which alone is worth the twenty rupees I paid for this whopper of a magazine with 358 pages. I found it slightly difficult to carry the magazine, heavy and unwieldy that it was.

I took a peek at the Top 100 Best of Best list and found Jaipur was at 9th place, Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur was at 41 on the list. That was in 2005, don't forget

With nearly 360 pages of stuff it is enough reading for a month, this magazine.