The Sunday Haul; Finding Three Good Books

In the essay titled ‘Welcome to the Age of Tropical Classical’ in his book of essays also titled 'Tropical Classical' , Pico Iyer writes about three authors- Derek Walcott, Romesh Gunasekara and Richard Rodriguez. He writes that these three writers represent a bold new style of writing that he terms as ‘Tropical Classical’.

Pico Iyer says that what distinguishes these three writers is ‘the ability to season high classical forms with a lyrical beauty drawn from the streets and beaches of their homes.’ He heaps high praise on all these three and mentions the essayist Richard Rodriguez’s ‘Hunger of Memory- The Education of Richard Rodriguez’, his first book. The title rang a bell in my memory because I had seen this book at Abids several times in the past.

It was the first book I picked up at Abids this Sunday from a heap of books selling for only ten rupees. It is an autobiography as stated on the cover which also has a picture of the young Mexican-American author. I was glad I found this book which one of my favorite writers has praised highly about. I had read that essay only on Friday morning at the swimming pool while my kid took his morning swim.

In the same heap I also found another book whose title seemed again, familiar. It was ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ by Christopher J. Koch published by Minerva. The book is set in Jakarta and 1965 is the year mentioned in the title. This is what Anthony Burgess says about the book on the back cover: ‘Intelligent, compassionate, flavoursome, convincing…this book is to be prized.’ I hope it turns out to be a wonderful read.

The next and the last find of the day was Woody Allen’s ‘Without Feathers’ that I got once again for only ten rupees. I have read this book that has eighteen pieces in it including some of his classic works like ‘The Whore of Mensa’ and the play ‘Death’. I like Woody Allen’s book very much but I haven’t seen any of his movies. I already have a copy of this book but I plan to give this copy away to friends.

The last find was a magazine, the Australian edition of “Men’s Health’, of November 2007 the tenth anniversary issue. It had an article titled ‘Raise Your Kids Like a Man’ and I wanted to know how. A lot of the articles in such magazines are about fitness, health and grooming so I generally don’t buy them but this was an exception.

I was glad with this Sunday’s haul of three good books that I got cheap. Only thing is I have to plan when to read all the books I am picking up every Sunday at Abids.