The New Year;'s Haul, HLF and The Literary Review

The New Year Haul
It would probably be impossible or very difficult for me to finish reading the 300 + books lying around in my house in the near future unless I stop buying books every week and adding to the pile. If I were younger I’d not have felt any anxiety but since I’ll be touching 50 soon I do not think I can spare much time reading books. Hence I plan to read only those books that must be read. Afraid that I’d pick up more books if I go to Abids, last Sunday I almost did not go. However, I went not wishing to miss the Abids trip on the first Sunday of the New Year.

Though I had resolved that if at all I had to buy I’d buy just one book. I bought just one book that I got for only fifty rupees. I like to read good crime fiction and have books by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, Jo Nesbo, and other writers. However, I have not made any special efforts to learn about other writers who might be writing equally good books. Somewhere I had seen the name ‘James Ellroy’ but did not buy any book though I came across a few titles of his. Last Sunday I found ‘The Big Nowhere’ by James Ellroy that I felt I had to buy especially after I read the blurb on the front cover that reads ‘One of the Great American Writers of our time’ by LA Times Book Review. It was a good copy but too lengthy for my taste with nearly four hundred pages. It was mine for fifty rupees only.

Hyderabad Literary Festival & The Literary Review
It is in the news that the Hyderabad Literary Festival would be held from January 18 to 20 at MANUU which is somewhere very far away. I had been to last year’s event at Taramati Baradari with Hari and had an interesting time. However it looks like I may not be able to attend this year owing to work. (I’m still No.2.) I am very eager to go this year too since the list of participants has Vinod Mehta, Sekhar Kammula and others. But I have to see how things work out. Maybe I can attend on the last day which happens to be a Sunday. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Though I might miss HLF I do wish to attend ‘The Hindu Lit for Life’ at Chennai sometime in February 2013 that I read about in this month’s “Literary Review’ in The Hindu.

This month’s ‘Literary Review’ had an interview with Jerry Pinto whose articles I like very much. I am thinking of buying his book ‘Em and the Big Hoom’ and read it because it appears to be quite good from what I could gather from the reviews I read in the past. In his column ‘The Creative Writer’ Vikram Kapur bemoans the lack of memorable cricket fiction especially in the country. I do not know if he has heard about Hari’s ‘The Men Within’ which is a novel based entirely on cricket and also made into a Telugu movie ‘Golkonda High School’ that was also good.

Another interesting piece of news was about the ‘The Hindu Lit for Life’ event in February 2013, half at Delhi and the concluding session in Chennai on 16 and 17th February. I want to attend this event if possible. God knows what will happen by then.