It is curious how certain details like book titles long encountered in sundry articles remain in the unconscious memory, floating up when the actual book appears before the eyes. Last week I was rereading a beautiful essay titled ‘Literature of Personal Disaster’ by Nancy Mairs in which I came across the title of a book I had recently bought on a Sunday. It was Molly Haskins’ ‘Love and Other Infectious Diseases’ that I got for just ten bucks. Now I realize I had picked it up since the title stayed in my memory after I had read the essay the day after I found ‘Best Writing on Writing’ sometime back. I guess it was something similar at work when this Sunday I found Sue Hubbell’s ‘A Contry Year:Living the Questions’ that I had read about in a website. Of course, I had written the title in my list of ‘must read books’ so it was easier to remember. I got this book for only ten rupees along with another I found for twenty rupees.
But the first book I saw on Sunday put me in a great state of excitement. I found Syd Field’s ‘Foundations of Screenwriting’ but was aghast when I saw the price on it. It was ‘450/’ which produced an anxiety that wasn’t quelled until I picked up the book about half hour later for four hundred, the bookseller having reduced the price for me. However, it was too high a price felt Uma who was with me. One item on my bucket list is writing a screenplay so the need to read such books before attempting one.
Another great find was Marquez’s ‘Collected Short Stories’ that I found minutes after I saw Syd Field’s book. I arrived at the seller just when he was taking books out of a carton and I fell on the book the moment I saw the title. I got it for a hundred bucks. It was the same book I had bought sometime at the beginning of this month at Odyssey paying two hundred and ninety five rupees for the brand new copy. The copy I found at Abids had a different cover and the original price at the back was two hundred rupees. If I had waited a couple of weeks I would have saved so much I thought, but then it gave me a good idea. The new Marquez copy would make for an ideal gift.
In the heaps of books selling for ten and twenty books I have found some good books on previous visits. This Sunday again I found two good ones. One was by PJ O’Rourke, someone who happens to be a favorite of my own favorite writer, Dave Barry. I found his (O’Rourke’s) ‘Republican Party Reptile’ that appears to be funny if the first essay is anything to go by. The second book was the aforementioned book by Sue Hubbell. The fifth book I picked up was actually the first book I saw but did not buy because the guy did not have change. It was a book for my kid, another one about making paper planes. I had run out of money by then and had to take a loan from Uma to pay for the remaining books. I returned home happy with the haul and wondering when I would have the time to write a screenplay when I am not finding the time to read the books I am picking up at Abids and elsewhere.
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