Super Sunday Haul

There are Sundays and there are Super Sundays in my life. Super Sundays are those Sundays full of things that I love. Last Sunday, it was one such rare Sunday when from morning till night, almost every hour was filled either with books, reading about literature, writers, and book sales. In the morning of the first Sunday of the month there was the ‘Literary Review’ supplement in ‘The Hindu’ followed by the visit to the second hand book bazaar at Abids where I hung out until well after lunch time. After lunch it was more books at the second hand book sale of Best Books at YMCA where I spent a couple of hours, vacillating between a desire to pick up more books and a stronger desire not to buy any more books. Ultimately I ended up buying just one book at the sale and the book was Geoffrey Ashe’s ‘The Art of Writing Made Simple.’ Even after reading about a hundred books on writing and also attempting to write a novel while also blogging here I do not feel that I really can write well enough to be published. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with the new crop of writers in India. More about them in a future post but there's something that will warm the hearts of writers.

In this month’s issue of ‘Literary Review’ was the welcome announcement of ‘The Hindu Best Fiction Award’ with a prize of Rupees Five Lakhs. I am looking forward to the short list of five books to be announced in October. In November the final award will be announced. It would be an interesting to watch who wins the prize. I have already made a mental list of all the books that are likely to be on this list. I hope this award will be an encouragement to those writers who are striving to write good books.

In a sign that I am moving closer to the kitchen I picked up another cooking related book and this one was by a famous chef who appears on TV. I found Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Playing With Fire’ in a heap of books selling for twenty rupees. Once again I did not bother to look at the book closely and failed to notice that it did not have the last ten or so pages. Anyway after reading the first two hundred and eighty I hope I will get an idea of how it ends. Incidentally I also learnt that Ramsay has already come out with his autobiography titled ‘Humble Pie’ that I want to read someday.

The second find of Sunday at Abids was John Barth’s ‘Lost in the Funhouse’ which was something I had been looking for. I had read about the essay in a book of writing and have been on the lookout for it ever since. Of course, I picked up Alice Sebold’s ‘Lucky’ that I had missed buying the previous book. I got both these books for fifty rupees and it made me quite happy getting them so cheap.