The Sunday Haul, A New Pen Store- Reopening of a Secondhand Bookstore

One normally doesn’t expect to find any mention of fountain pens or even a picture of a fountain pen in a magazine devoted entirely to leisure travel. But that’s what I found in the glossy pages of a reputed travel magazine that I found at Abids on Sunday. It might sound incredible to anyone who reads this blog regularly but finding Condé Nast Traveller at Abids every Sunday has become quite a normal and in fact, a predictable thing for me. This week it was an incredible coincidence finding the magazine. Once again, I found another issue of Condé Nast Traveller (September 09, the Brit edition with Traveller spelt with a double ‘l’) at Abids on Sunday. Only last month I had found the American edition of September 09. I don’t think even those who subscribe to the magazine get to read the magazine as frequently as I do. Whereas they get it once a month I get a different issue almost every week. This week I had a chance of reading two different editions of the same magazine. Surprisingly there wasn’t anything common between the two editions.

However it was an interesting issue in more ways than one. First there was an article on good old Goa. Then of course, were the mentions of fountain pens. The magazine offered a Mont Blanc Meisterstuck fountain pen to those who write the best letter/recommendation/suggestion to the editor. The other mention was a nice picture of a fountain pen that was unique in more than one way. The Sentryman Limited Edition Explorer fountain pen by Dunhill is not only a fountain pen but also has a ballpoint pen somewhere inside that can also write at -20 degrees if one happens to be living in areas where the temperature goes down to that levels. It writes even when your fingers cannot move in such temperatures. If you happen to need to put something on fire (a natural thing to do considering the temperature) there’s a flint in the barrel that one can take out and strike against the cap of the pen to produce a spark. The cap of the pen also has a luminous ring on the top. This wonderful pen with killer looks comes at a killer price of only £ 2995. While we are at it I might mention something interesting about pens I saw on Saturday.

In Saturday’s Deccan Chronicle I saw an ad for a new pen store- Editions- that has opened in the Inorbit Mall at Madhapur. It is from the Odyssey stable. The store has pens of fifteen famous brands like Visconti, Delta, Online, Curtis, david oscarson, Krone, Marlen, Stipula, Fransesco Rubinato, DiplomatWaldmann, Kynsey, Conklin, Cleo Skribent, and Naldi. ‘Editions’ couldn’t have opened at a more opportune time because I have reached a major milestone in writing my novel that calls for some kind of a reward for my writerly self. The man behind Deccan Chronicle, T Venkat Ram Reddy, is an avid collector of fountain pens I am told. For the record, I would like to say that I owe a lot to Deccan Chronicle for the paper has helped me in my journey as a writer by publishing some of my middles way back in the late nineties. I plan to keep them on this blog sometime soon.

I love to read memoirs, especially of writers. They reveal a lot on how the writer developed over the years in his/her journey as a writer. I read them mostly to see if any writer has led the sort of life that resembles mine even faintly. Sometime last year I found a book that I thought would help me during the revision of my book that I was still struggling to finish. It was Donald Murray’s ‘The Craft of Revision’ that I found at a second hand bookstore for fifty rupees. I found the book quite useful while revising my drafts. I looked for other books by Donald Murray which too were on writing mostly. But I wasn’t able to get any until last week when I came across “My Twice Lived Life’ by Donald Murray. It was a brand new hardcover book with the jacket intact and which I got for only twenty rupees. I read a few pages after I got home. He writes about his changed attitude to life after a heart attack, and also about growing up and ageing. It has a brutal honesty about it one cannot find in many memoirs. I haven’t finished reading it so cannot say much about the rest of the book except that it promises to be a good read.

I found two more books apart from Donald Murray’s ‘My Twice Lived Life.’ One was the copy of Elmore Leonard’s ‘Bandits’ that I had seen a couple of weeks back. Since no one seemed to be buying it I picked it up since I had promised a friend that I’d give him one of Elmore Leonard’s books. In keeping with another promise I made to another friend I also picked up Paul Theroux’s ‘Riding the Iron Rooster’ that I found in the same pile of books selling for twenty rupees. It was a brand new copy and the interesting thing was the bookmark. A beer label peeled off a bottle was inside and my guess is that it was being used as a book mark. The brand was ‘Three Horses Beer’ and seemed to be from Madagascar! It looks like the copy came a long way.

Frankfurt Books had a nice collection of books though it tended to move from place to place. The last time I saw it was somewhere at Punjagutta a couple of years ago before shutting shop. It has reopened again, this time at Begumpet just before the foot over bridge near the airport. I found a screenplay by Tarantino that I plan to pick up on my next visit.