No one can be blamed if they’re getting the impression that maybe I’ve been buying far too many books on writing than is good for me. As a matter of fact/ actually I too am getting the same impression. But I’m helpless about it because my writing is like that. I need to write much better than what I am doing now. If the hits on the blog and my nervousness about showing my manuscript are any indication then I still have a long way to go before I can even think of making it to the long lists.
Anyway, last Sunday at Abids I picked up yet another book on writing. In fact, I had picked up one earlier during the week. On Saturday I had been to a sale of second hand books organized by Best Books at YMCA, Secunderabad. At the sale I had seen a book on writing that I wanted to buy but did not because of its price- Rs. 145 only. On Sunday I was delighted to find the same title at Abids but at a much lesser price. The book was Donald Hall’s ‘Writing Well’, a 325-page tome that I got for only fifty rupees. I like to think that not buying the book at the sale was the first intelligent decision I took in the New Year.
However, since I can never leave a bookstore, much less a second hand book sale, empty handed, I had picked up another book on writing. I found Gene Perret’s ‘Become a Richer Writer’ and bought it for Rs. 95. I know it is on the higher side but considering what the title promises I guess it is money well spent. The book is in first person which is what I look for in books on writing. One learns more about writing from such books than the academic tomes.
With the addition of these two books on writing, my collection of books on writing has further expanded though not my skill. Regretfully and much to my disappointment, reading even a hundred plus books on writing doesn’t seem to have done much for my writing. If it had been anyone else in my place I am sure that after reading just a couple of books on writing they would have learnt all there was to learn about writing and also gone ahead and found a place on the Booker short list. But then government blokes are not exactly known to be smart in the first place or they wouldn’t have been in the government.
One needn’t go very far to know that Hyderabad has arrived, as far as reading tastes are concerned. I found this month’s (Jan 2010) issue of the Vanity Fair at Abids. Not only did I find the absolutely latest issue of VF I got it for only ten rupees. I’m yet to figure out how the magazine found its way here but it makes me one of the few persons in Hyderabad to have read the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Not that it amounts to anything great but it gives me reason to claim that I am rather well read!!
Fans of Barkha Dutt, if there are any, would be interested to know that apart from being on TV reading the news, hosting talk shows and reporting from odd places she not only finds the time to read magazines like Vanity Fair but also finds the time to write letters to their editors pointing out inaccuracies. A letter from Barkha Dutt to the editor has been published in the issue. More interesting were pieces on the lovely Meryl Streep, Elvis and the Hadron Collider. So that constituted my reading material for the week.
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