For someone with a limited appetite and an even lesser desire for eating my growing hunger for books about food, cooking (not cookbooks though), chef’s memoirs and everything gastronomic is something I cannot understand. Of late I find myself unable to resist buying such books. I am truly baffled. One of my lesser ambitions has been to learn to cook, if not to become a chef. Currently I am reading Anthony Bourdain’s ‘The Nasty Bits’ which might explain why I was drawn to Joan Smith’s ‘Hungry for You.’ I found this book in a heap of books selling for only ten rupees at Abids last Sunday.
‘Hungry for You’ is an anthology of extracts from novels, tracts, songs, self help books, poetry and biographies all of which relate to just one thing- food. The 390- page book is divided into six chapters, each dealing with one aspect of food and eating. Each chapter begins with a thought provoking essay by Joan Smith. Smith writes that there are other aspects of food then merely eating it which is what I thought was the purpose of food. I dipped into some of the extracts and was fascinated to read about the various ways authors have perceived and used food and eating in their works. It is beginning to make me look at Irani chai and biryani in an entirely new light.
The second find of the day was a book that I’ve been looking for since years. I was surprised to find that the book- James M Cain’s ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ was so short, just 121 pages. I was able to finish reading it in just a couple of hours. Cain’s style is spare, in just a few words he could tell quite a lot. The story too is very interesting. It is about a rough bum who murders for the sake of love and gets away with it. The copy that I found at Abids wasn’t anything great with yellowing pages that were brittle. But it yielded an interesting piece of information. On one of the front pages was a stamp saying ‘AMJAD, New and Secondhand Booksellers, Chikkadpally, Hyderabad.’ I would have loved to check out the place but I know that there is no such place in Chikkadpally as far as I know.
The third find of the day was a book I’ve been eyeing since about a year. There’s a guy in Abids who thinks that every book he has on sale is worth more than the price on it. To be fair, he has a rather good collection. But never does he agree to my price. I usually do not buy from him which is the reason why I did not pick up Wallace Stegner’s ‘Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West.’ I had seen it with him last year and he had rather haughtily said he would not give it to me at the price I asked for it. It became a matter of ego and I did not ask him again. Though I coveted the book I walked past every Sunday until last week. From a temporary wooden shelf that he puts his books on the guy had relegated the book to the pavement. It was from the pavement that I bought it for only thirty rupees.
‘Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs,’ too was a collection of sixteen essays divided into three chapters. The first chapter is about his childhood, the second about living in the West and the third and last chapter was about reading and writing. I read the last essay titled ‘The Law of Nature and the Dream of Man; Ruminations on the Art of Fiction. In the essay Wallace Stegner makes some insightful observations on writing fiction. He writes that ‘Because a good writer is not really a mirror; he is a lens… Ultimately there is no escaping the fact that fiction is only as good as its maker. It sees only with the clarity that he is capable of…’
There’s a lot in the book and it needs a separate post to write all that. Like many of the books I buy, this book too led to other books I feel I ought to buy soon. In another essay Stegner writes about John Steinbeck’s ‘The Flight’ a short story. After reading his essay on how Steinbeck came to write and publish it I want to look out for ‘The Long Valley.’ Steinbeck had included ‘The Flight’ in this collection of short stories. There were other essays about writers like George Stewart, Walter Clark and Norman Maclean that I still haven’t read.
The last book Sidney Sheldon’s ‘Windmills of the Gods’ was a present from my friend and fellow blogger, Daniel who I met at Abids quite unexpectedly. I had earlier found Elmore Leonard’s ‘Touch’ and gave it to him.
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