FRIDAY DOUBLE POST/POST- 1: The Book Fair Haul-2

After my first visit to the Hyderabad Book Fair on the very first day itself I did not get the time to visit until a week later. I was there on the penultimate day, on Saturday, sometime in the evening. Even after finding nine books on my first visit I did not seem content. I felt there were more books to be found in the second hand book stalls. On the previous visit I had seen a couple of books but I did not buy them. I had seen another good copy of Pico Iyer’s ‘Tropical Classical’, Murakami’s ‘Wild Sheep Chase’, Paul Theroux’s ‘The Tao of Travel’ that I did not buy because by then I had spent far too much on the nine books I had found before I saw these titles.

On my second visit I went around looking for these titles that I did not buy and needless to say, I did not find them. Instead I found other interesting titles. At one stall I found another Alice Munro title- ‘The View from Castle Rock’ that I was thrilled to find. I got the book quite cheap considering what I had paid for the first book. The seller gave this book to me for a hundred and fifty rupees. There are eleven stories in this book divided into two Parts. Part I titled ‘No Advantages’ has these stories ‘No Advantages, The View from Castle Rock, Illinois, The Wilds of Morris Township, Working for a Living’ Part II titled ‘Home’ has these stories- Fathers, Lying Under the Apple Tree, Hired Girl, The Ticket, Home, What Do You Want to Know For ?’ and under ‘Epilogue’ there’s one story titled ‘Messenger’. This is my fourth Alice Munro title. Earlier I had bought her ‘Dance of the Happy Shades’ and ‘The Moons of Jupiter’ and recently on the first day of the book fair I had found ‘Runaway.’ At another stall I found a Robert B. Parker title that I do not have. I found his ‘School Days’ and got it for only fifty rupees.

Next day, Sunday, I went again for the third and last visit to the book fair. I went in the afternoon because it was the last day and I wanted to see if there is anything I might have missed on the previous two visits. I had never seen so many people visiting the book fair before. There were literally hundreds of bikes and scores of cars parked in the spacious grounds of the NTR Stadium where this year’s version of the Book fair was being held. I think it was a smart decision to shift the fair to the spacious grounds because not only were there more stalls they were spacious and also attracted thousands of visitors.

Later in another stall by a Chennai based seller I found another copy of ‘Runaway’ by Alice Munro that I had found on the first visit. This copy had a different cover though and also I got it for only a hundred rupees for this book that was in excellent condition. On the first day I had paid two hundred rupees for the same title. I might gift this copy to a friend.

The next find was another title by an author whose book I had picked up on my first visit. I found William Trevor’s ‘The Story of Lucy Gault’ in a rack of books selling for fifty rupees only and it was a lucky find. This is the third William Trevor title that I’ve found till now. Sometime back I had found ‘Felicia’s Journey’ and on the first day of the fair I had found ‘Two Lives.’ However I am eager to find a short story collection by this wonderful writer.

The final find on the last day of the book fair was a nice copy of Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ that I managed to get for a hundred and fifty rupees. I must have bought about a dozen copies of this book and must have given as many to friends and other people who wanted to be writers.