I should have known that all the books (the good ones anyway) would be picked up by others more interested in them than I. People who love books aren’t the only ones coming to Abids on Sundays but those who sell them also come except that they come with keener eyes and deeper pockets. It is a fact (that not many know) that most people who run second hand bookstores in Hyderabad buy some of their titles from other smaller booksellers at Abids. These small sellers don’t know the value of the books they have or are too eager to sell them off to the first buyer who asks for them. These bigger buyers get such books cheap from the smaller guys since they buy a lot of books which they then put in their stores for sale at inflated prices. I see the Best Books guys every Sunday patiently sifting through the books with other sellers and picking up bagfuls of them. Most of the books that I miss buying and don’t find again subsequently in the following weeks invariably appear on the shelves of these second hand bookstores.
The other week I had come across Tobias Wolff’s memoir ‘This Boy’s Life,’ Sarita Mandanna’s ‘Tiger Hills,’ Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ and also the Conde Nast Traveller of Jan 2010 and missed buying them. This Sunday I couldn’t find them anywhere which was a bit disappointing. I had thought I’d pick up ‘Tiger Hills’ and ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ but someone smarter had bagged them. I didn’t regret not finding the books but I regret losing the Conde Nast Traveller.
But I found a good book by Joyce Carol Oates- ‘Wonderland’- in a pile of books selling for twenty rupees. This was the same pile where I had seen an Iris Murdoch title the other week but hadn’t picked up to my eternal regret because Iris Murdoch is a great writer. But I instantly picked up 'Wonderland' which is quite a lengthy book at 479 pages. Coincidentally, a few steps away I saw another of her title (Beasts), a hardcover that I did not buy because I knew the seller would quote an impossible price. I left hoping I’d find it next week and get it for an affordable price after some hard bargaining, something I am beginning to get better at.
Later, I found the Feb 2011, issue of ‘The New Yorker’ that I read after I got home. I love the cartoons in TNY. Each one of them is a gem as are the articles and review in it. One of the books advertised in it was ‘Secret Ingredients’ a TNY book that I would have loved to read. It is described as ‘a feast of delicious writing on food and drink, seasoned with a generous dash of cartoons.’ The contributors to this collection include Woody Allen (on Dieting Like Dostoyevsky’s Way) Anthony Bourdain, Bill Buford, Don Dellillo (on Jell-O), Adam Gopnik, Chang Rae Lee, Susan Orlean, Jane Kramer (on The Writer’s Kitchen) and many other equally talented writers contributing their humor pieces, memoirs, classic profiles of great chefs and great eaters. I wonder if I will ever find it here in Hyderabad or anywhere in the country even.
Quite coincidentally the other day I had also read a review about another book by a chef- Gabrielle Hamilton’s ‘Blood, Bones, Butter.’ The excerpt I read made me wonder if I’d find this book too somewhere soon. But the book I have been on the look out since a long time eludes me. A long time ago I had seen ‘How I Learnt to Cook’ in a secondhand bookstore. It was outrageously priced at four hundred and fifty rupees which was one reason I did not immediately buy it. I had seen two copies of the book in that particular bookstore but now when I have the money in my pocket and a hunger to read such books I am unable to locate it.
There were other books I came across but was not interested in buying them. There was a hardcover copy of Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’ selling for the ridiculous price of only twenty rupees. Then there are the books by Len Deighton (Spy Hook, London Match, Only When I Larf) and John Le Carre (Smiley’s People; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) that no one seems to be interested in reading. There was also Bill Bryson’s ‘A Walk in the Woods’ that I have been seeing since the past two or three months at the same place. If no one buys it next week then I am going to pick it up.
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