The Sunday Haul

Member of the Book Clan

‘I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.’

‘Of those of us who comprise the real clan of the book, who read not to judge the reading of others but to take the measure of ourselves.’

These lines are from a book I have already a copy of – Anna Quindlen’s ‘How Reading Changed My Life’ that I found at Abids on Sunday. Just as I can never get enough of reading about writing I also cannot get enough of people, especially writers, talking about their reading, and about the books they love most. I had found this book maybe two years back and again this Sunday I found another similar copy and at the same rate I had picked up the first copy- ten rupees! It is a slim volume, not more than eighty five pages but contains an eloquent account of her love for reading and how it changed her life. I have started rereading the book while in the bus to my town. I was comforted by the thought that though I may not be with my family my books come with me wherever I go. By the way, Elmore Leonard also happens to be one author she loves to read. ‘Get Shorty’ is on a list at the back of the book.

The other book I found was Somerset Maugham’s ‘The Gentleman in the Parlour (A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong), a travel book that I was looking for since a long time. I was surprised to see that the copy I found was from a library of a college in the district I am working in now. I might be having a copy of the book but I don’t remember. I got the book for fifty rupees which was a bit on the high side but I guess it is worth it. I thought so when I read in the preface this comforting line: ‘I beg him (the reader) to remember that there is no language more difficult to write than English. No one ever learns all that there is to be known about it. In the long history of our literature it would be difficult to find more than six persons who have written it faultlessly.’ It means I don’t have to break my head trying to write faultless English. I am very unlikely one of those six.

I also found two brand new copies of the travel magazine ‘National Geographic Traveler’, the April 2009 and the May/June 2009 issue, both for only thirty rupees. The April 2009 issue had a one on one interview with Paul Theroux. In reply to a question related to the sequel (Ghost Train to the Eastern Star) to ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’ regarding what had changed between the two trips Theroux reply was this: ‘Undoubtedly village life in rural India- the pattern of harvest, or drought, debt, hunger, and the pieties of Hinduism. This is in great contrast to parallel developments in information technology.’ In reply to a question about what the single most crucial thing to take on a trip he said- a very small shortwave radio. That’s sensible advice I think.

I was glad about the haul this Sunday but I missed buying a couple of new issues of ‘Conde Nast Traveller’ that I saw rather late by which time I had already exhausted my budget. The other day I had picked up a book at a book reading so I had overshot my budget which means I have to watch what I buy for the next few weeks.