The Haul

One would think that booklovers like me would be happy after a trip to a bookstore arms filled with books. Not me though because I feel depressed after I step out of a bookstore even though I have bought a couple of books. I’m unhappy because of all the books I have left behind without buying. I wish I had enough money to buy all the books I want to buy and read, of course.

On Sunday I was at Abids with my two friends, Uma and Srikant to look for books. If people in Hyderabad who love second hand books are intrepid visitors to Abids then the people who sell them are no less also intrepid. Despite the festival shopping crowds which meant the regular shops were open there were quite a number of sellers who set up their shelves wherever there was space at Abids. Some of them were at their regular spots. I had seen Herman Wouk’s ‘Don’t Stop the Carnival’ that I had been meaning to buy for sometime but finally did not buy. It was a fairly good copy and the seller was one who would give it to me quite cheap. Still, I did not buy it and decided I’d wait one more week.

Afterwards I found nothing interesting but Srikant spotted ‘Kingdom’s End and Other Stories’ by Saadat Hasan Manto. The translator was Khalid Hasan and since it was a Penguin title I wanted it. I was lucky since Srikant graciously let me take it. I got the book for only fifty rupees which was quite a bargain considering the author and the imprint. Later I read the introduction which I found to be one of the best I’ve ever read about Manto. I was glad I found this title because sometime in July I had found another collection of Manto’s stories from Katha titled ‘Black Margins’ where the stories are translated by several people. ‘Kingdom’s End and Other Stories’ has twenty four stories in all and some of them I had already read in the other collection and elsewhere. There are some stories like Toba Tek Singh with the same title but some stories had different titles like Cold Meat/Colder Than Ice, For Freedom’s Sake/The Price of Freedom and so on. It would be interesting to read two different translated versions.

Monday, the next day, being Durgashtami, was a holiday for us in the state government. I was alone at home and quite bored. I decided to drop in at the new Best Book store in the premises of YMCA where I picked up a couple of books. This latest secondhand book store in Hyderabad is small but has a lot of good books. I picked up yet another copy of Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ but the real find was a Spenser title. I saw Robert B. Parker’s ‘Promised Land’ and lapped it up right away. After I paid for these books I saw George V. Higgins’ ‘On Writing’ that I reluctantly did not buy because of budget problems. It was with mixed feelings that I left the store, glad I had found a new Spenser title and at the same time full of regret that I couldn’t buy George V.Higgins’ book.

Wednesday was a holiday again. After reading a bit, watching a bit of television I felt restless. If one is an addict then one makes all sorts of excuses to indulge in one’s particular addiction. Ever since I saw ‘On Writing’ by George V.Higgins I felt that I have to read that book if I wanted to complete my novel. As the day progressed my restlessness grew and finally I decided I’d go and have another look at the book since I had forgotten what the price was. So I went to Best Books again sometime around lunch time and picked up the book. After I got home I started reading the book and am half way through it. Stephen King also has a book titled ‘On Writing’ and George V.Higgins too has one of the same title. The similarity ends there since King’s book is interesting and fun to read, whereas George V.Higgins’ book needs some effort to get to the meaning. The sentences are lengthy and pretty convoluted which means that one cannot race through the book like one can through King’s book. However, some of the advice is pretty useful to clueless writers like me. Later in the evening I had to go to my in-laws’ place in Begumpet and on the way I stopped at Frankfurt. After I had bought Higgins’ book in the afternoon I had decided I would not buy any more books for some time to come. At Frankfurt I saw Don Delillo’s ‘Underground’, ‘Best Food Writing 2006,’ ‘Atlas of Folded Earth’ by Anuradha Roy and many books by hundreds of other writers I can never hope to read in this lifetime. I spent a good part of an hour going through every title that appeared interesting and finally left, as resolved earlier, without buying anything. It was a small miracle that I came out of the bookstore without buying anything.