For some time now I have been compiling a list of my ‘Most Wanted’ books which includes Paul Theroux’s ‘Fresh Air Fiend’, Marquez’s ‘Living to Tell the Tale’ and so on. One of the books in that list was E.M.Forster’s ‘Aspects of the Novel’ that I had missed buying a couple of years ago. This Sunday I got it and how! A friend had accompanied me and he spotted the book long before I could and I got the first surprise of the day when he offered to buy it for me. I felt doubly lucky- finding a book in my ‘Most Wanted’ list and then, having someone pay for it!
A little before finding the book I had found the July 2008 issue of ‘Conde Nast Traveler’ which I got for only ten rupees whereas the various stickers on the cover had rates like $12.40 (Pansing) and $ 11.59 (TimesNewsLink). The bonus was that the magazine had an article on Lakshwadeep islands by someone called Shoba Narayan. It was a well written piece with nice photographs. When I was in the Andamans I had resolved to visit Lakshwadeep as soon as I could. But with the sort of pay I get as a government employee I cannot dream of such trips.
The next find was Peter Mayle’s ‘Hotel Pastis’ in a heap of books selling for twenty rupees. I had been seeing copies of this book for quite sometime now but this Sunday I picked the almost new, hardcover, first American Edition copy that I got for twenty rupees. What is surprising is that it is almost brand new and I wonder how it got here. It is quoted as a ‘Novel of Provence’, of escape, romance and adventure, things missing in my life! Elsewhere, I had seen several copies of Mayle’s two other celebrated books- ‘A Year in Provence’ and ‘Tojours Provence.’
Another lucky find was a book by the author of ‘Snow Leopard’- Peter Matthiessen, one of my favorites. Yesterday I found his ‘The Cloud Forest’ for only ten rupees. It was a small book of his trip from the Amazon to Tierra del Fuego in South America. In fact the sub-title of the book was- A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness. I was happy to find it, and almost at the same time, my friend found another copy of ‘Aspects of the Novel’ for almost half the price that he paid for the first copy that he gave to me. It turned out to be an interesting coincidence.
The last book I picked up was Spike Milligan’s ‘Goodbye Soldier.’ I was pleasantly surprised that the book was enclosed in a plastic book jacket and I paid only ten rupees for the book. The jacket alone would have been worth ten rupees and the book seemed to have come all the way to the pavements of Abids in Hyderabad from a library in West Sussex. I read inside that Milligan was born in India at Ahmednagar. The book was the sixth in a series of his war memoirs. I have never before read Spike Milligan and had come across another book of his- ‘Puckoon’ but had not picked it up. If ‘Goodbye Soldier’ is okay then maybe I will pick it up.
On the whole I bought more books than I planned and it was a really fine haul after a long time. It was almost a two Sundays haul, and coincidentally next Sunday there is the Ganesh Immersion in Hyderabad and the booksellers won’t put up their wares.
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