The Recent Haul

Hobbies that turn into habits have a way of making one feel empty and restless when not indulged in regularly. Last Sunday I couldn’t go to Abids as is my habit since I wasn’t feeling exactly like a million dollars and stayed at home. I lay in bed wondering how many good books might have been picked up and regretting I had to miss the morning’s hunt for books at Abids. I knew it wouldn’t me any good for the rest of the week so I dropped in at MR Books at Begumpet where I had seen Haruki Murakami’s ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ some time ago. Luckily, it was still on the shelves so it did not take me more than a few seconds to grab it. But I had to pay a hundred and seventy rupees for the hardbound edition which appears to be a first edition. The original is in Japanese though.

Since I was on a week-long training at Hyderabad I had time in the evenings and dropped in at the book sale by Best Books at YMCA. I looked for something to buy but even after an hour or so I couldn’t find anything worth buying. Just before I was leaving I chanced upon a book by an author who is one of my favorites- Somerset Maugham. It was also a title that I had been looking for since a long time. The book was ‘On a Chinese Screen’ that is not a novel but a collection of the notes Maugham made while traveling up the Yangtze river in 1919. It is like his other book ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ where he recorded his impressions of people and places in his inimitable style. I got this book for eighty five rupees which I think was worth it.

One cannot complain at the way the book sellers at Abids or second hand book sales arrange the books in such a manner that you have to keep craning your neck in both directions frequently. But when well known bookstores do it one cannot help feel irritated. I had dropped in at Crossword Bookstore at the City Centre the other day and happened to look through a collection of discount books arranged on a table. They were arranged as if an illiterate had put them together. One title was facing in one direction and another was facing in the opposite direction making it quite difficult to read them. Then I happened to find two copies of a book by Fakir Mohan Senapati and one of them was marked ‘30% Off’ and the other copy was marked ‘40% Off’ though they were both in similar condition. It makes me wonder if the guys at such bookstores really pay attention to what they are doing. Needless to say I did not buy anything there though I wish I had bought one of the beautiful fountain pens displayed.