The Sunday Haul

Unless until there’s a possibility of the heavens falling down or something similar, the booksellers of Abids aren’t the sort to be deterred from setting up shop on Sundays. That’s what I know from my twenty-year experience of visiting Abids on Sundays in search of books. So despite a bandh call I set out for Abids last Sunday only to find that though the heavens hadn’t fallen many of the booksellers had decided not to show up. Missing were the big name regulars and only a handful of them were to be found with their pathetic collection of magazines and books. Under normal circumstances it would have been enough to make me turn around and go home. But somehow I decided to check what these small timers had on offer.

Good thing I did not leave right away because I found the latest issue of a magazine that I don’t usually buy, though I ought to, given my writerly ambitions. I found this month’s (December 09) issue of 'Vanity Fair' and got it for only thirty bucks. It had something like two hundred and seventy five glossy pages featuring a lot of interesting articles I was eager to read. I felt happy at this unexpected find. In the magazine I read that Stephen King had criticized the writing ability of Stephanie Meyer in its October 2009 issue which now I have to look for. I also learnt about two new books in the offing- one was about a sequel to ‘Freakonomics’ called ‘Super Freakonomics’ and the other book was novelist Zadie Smith’s first collection of essays titled ‘Mind of Her Own’ that I have to read though I (unfortunately) haven’t read any of her books.

Another writer apart from Stephanie Meyer whose books are intriguing me are Stieg Larsson’s books. There was a lengthy piece on Larsson and his ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ by Chrisopher Hitchens. In one of the Sunday papers I had read that Rahul Bose was currently reading the book. Maybe I too should start looking for Larssson’s books. Sadly, there are a lot of authors whose books I am yet to read and if I list those writers here some of the readers of this blog might stop visiting altogether! One of the things I enjoy is the scent that these magazines give out. Apart from that the mag had a lot of pictures of interesting stuff that I can never buy and also pictures of interesting people most of us can never expect to meet which is why maybe someone tore a few pages from this magazine. This I found after I got home in the afternoon.

However, one reason why I landed eagerly at Abids was to pick up the jumbo issue of Condé Nast Traveler that I had missed buying last Sunday. Needless to say, neither the seller nor the magazine was available which was a crushing disappointment. However, I found a new magazine- ‘real travel’ of September 2009 that had three articles on travel writing which was what made me buy the magazine in the first place. Maybe someday I will turn into a travel writer.