DOUBLE POST FRIDAY / POST -2: A Super Midweek/Independence Day Haul

Last weekend was a pretty long one that lasted four days and ended with the Independence Day on the fifteenth of August. Though I had been to Abids on Sunday and picked up six good books I felt restless. On Monday I dropped in at the MR Books store opposite Lifestyle in Begumpet just to look at the books and pass the time. In no time I found a good book that I immediately wanted to buy. I found a copy of ‘Ah, Treachery’ by Ross Thomas. It was entirely by chance that I had stumbled across Ross Thomas. I had first come across a Ross Thomas title a couple of years back when I found ‘The Yellow Dog Contract’. After reading it I wanted to buy all the books Ross Thomas had written. Over the years I found ‘Twilight At Mac’s Place,’ ‘The Fools in Town Are On Our Side’ and ‘The Mordida Man’ only the previous Sunday. There are many other titles of his that I want to read especially ‘Briarpatch’ and ‘The Missionary Stew’ that are said to be very good. So when I found ‘Ah, Treachery’ I grabbed it right away.

Then on Tuesday I had been to the flag hoisting at my workplace in the morning. On the way back I decided to stop at MR Books once again since I had not checked the books on the landing of the stairs to the cellar and the books by kilo section in the cellar. I consider myself to be lucky in the matter of finding good titles since I manage to find some really good titles regularly. But on some days I get super lucky and Tuesday was one such super lucky day. Sometime last year or so I had started reading Business Line on Saturday that comes with a supplement called ‘Blink’ that carries some really good stuff. I think it was in some article about food that I read about James Salter and how good his writing was especially ‘Life is Meals’ and his memoirs ‘Burning the Days.’ Little did I know then that I would find his books soon. Sometime recently I found a copy of ‘A Sport and A Pastime’ at Abids and did not expect to find another James Salter title very soon.

I’ve learnt that it pays to look at each and every title in piles of books wherever they are. There’s a large, irregular pile of books in some kind of a shelf besides the steps in MR Books that lead down to the cellar. On my last visit I had seen a nice copy of ‘The Foreigner’ by Arun Joshi in the pile that was still there but at a different place. There were other titles that I had seen earlier but there seemed to be some new titles that I started checking carefully on the spines. Then I spotted the name James Salter but couldn’t read the title because light was reflecting off it. I pulled out the book and got a wonderful shock to find that it was ‘Burning the Days.’ I was ecstatic on finding it and wondered if it had been there in the same pile that I had checked out on my earlier visit. I wondered if I had failed to notice this wonderful title and thanked my stars that no one had bought it. I marvelled at my exceptional good luck finding this book that I got for just a hundred rupees.

DOUBLE POST FRIDAY / POST-1: The Sunday Haul (on 20-8-2017)

Though I had a haul of eight books, six on Sunday and two more during the week, I could not stop myself from going to Abids on Sunday. The total haul of books that I had bought so far this year is somewhere around a hundred and twenty which looks like I am on the way to create new records. I was not in the mood to add any more books to this number, at least this Sunday or so I thought as I reached Abids. It was another cloudy, overcast morning and it looked like it would rain later in the day. Since I was alone I thought I’d be able to do the rounds quickly but it wasn’t so. I browsed until it was one in the afternoon and left with two books in the haul.

Of late I am getting drawn to books with mysterious sounding titles by writers I haven’t heard of. All such titles that I found so far turned out to be good books and one such title is ‘An Exile’ by Madison Jones that was a wonderful read. On Sunday I spotted a copy of ‘By Starlight’ by Thomas Sancton with one of the sellers. I leafed through the pages and read some passages at random and decided to buy it. It is a lengthy book running into four hundred pages but cost me only thirty rupees. I am not going to start reading it right away but will come to it sometime in the future.

I really do not remember if I had found ‘Dakshin’ by Chandra Padmanabhan and I am too lazy to check my blog. However, I spotted a beautiful copy of her other book ‘Southern Spice’ that I picked up right away. It was in mint condition without any blemishes or damage to it and I was glad to have found this copy that I got for a hundred rupees. It is one more addition to my large collection of cookbooks that is growing by the week. These two books were the only finds last Sunday.

The Sunday Haul (on 13-08-2017)

The weather gods are being too kind to me on Sunday mornings when I set out for Abids to look for books. Once again the weather was quite clear on Sunday morning at Abids. It was cloudy alright but it did not look like it would rain. I was glad the weather was just perfect for going around looking at the hundreds of titles laid out on the pavements of Abids. Another couple of weeks and the festival season would begin and the second hand booksellers would disappear for weeks altogether. So, with the idea of making hay while the sun shines, I decided to look really closely and try to find good titles. Somehow despite my reluctance to take more books home and general wish about not finding anything I end up finding more books than expected. Last Sunday the haul turned out to be good as well as a large one with six titles in the bag.

A couple of weeks ago I had finished reading ‘Here Lies Eric Ambler,’ Eric Ambler’s autobiography that I had found a long time back. I haven’t read anything by Ambler till then. After reading it I had in my mind to read one of his fiction titles. Usually I come across a lot of Eric Ambler titles out there at Abids but I hadn’t seen ‘The Levanter’ even once. So when I saw a copy of Eric Ambler’s ‘The Levanter’ first thing in the morning at Abids I picked it up. I got it for only twenty rupees. I plan to read it one of these days since it appears not too lengthy.

Then the next find was a multiple haul. One of the sellers I like is a deferential young man who gives the books to me at whatever price I ask. Since I do not want to abuse his respect for me I pay whatever price he quotes. Last Sunday I saw him sorting out books from a pile of books. I came closer to take a better look and saw two VS Naipaul titles that I had been trying to find. I saw ‘Beyond Belief’ and also ‘Among the Believers’ that I decided to take whatever be the price. I took them out and then another title fell out of the pile. It was a nice copy of ‘Chikaveera Rajendra’ by Masti Venkatesa Iyengar. I thought he’d ask more than three hundred and fifty rupees for these three books. But I was quite surprised when he quoted only two hundred rupees for these three titles. I was quite taken aback since I had seen the VS Naipaul titles at a second hand book store in the past and found that each title was priced at more than two hundred rupees. For the price of one VS Naipaul title in the second hand bookstore I got two of his books along with another good one by another author on the pavement.

Since the past couple of weeks I have been finding at least one good title among the piles of books that three sellers sell for twenty rupees. On Sunday with one of the three sellers I found a Penguin title that looked interesting. It was ‘the Night of Wenceslas’ by Lionel Davidson. I had never heard of this author so I hesitated for a while. On the cover it said it was made into a movie and that piqued my interest and I bought it. In another pile of twenty rupee books with another seller I found a book by one of my favourite authors-Ross Thomas. I found a copy of ‘The Mordida Man’ that had a battle worn cover with a lot of scratches but otherwise in good condition.

The Sunday Haul (on 06-08-2017)

For the past four continuous weeks it hasn’t rained on Sunday and last Sunday too was no exception. It was sunny and bright last Sunday too and I was a bit confused whether to be happy or be worried. If it hasn’t rained for so long there will be a lot of problems in the countryside, and on the other hand if it doesn’t rain I won’t have any problem at Abids. I hoped it would rain soon and set out for Abids to look for good titles to pick from the thousands of books laid out on the pavements. After a long time I had just one title in the haul and I was pleased with what I found.

Ages ago I came across William Blake’s ‘The Auguries of Innocence’ by William Blake and was spell bound by the four lines I read. I thought the entire poem had only these four lines:

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour

But I was surprised to know that ‘The Auguries of Innocence’ is a long poem with 132 lines. Before writing this post about the book on William Blake that I found at Abids last Sunday I thought I’d check out the poem online. All these years I had the stupid idea that it was a four line poem. How wrong I was, and how dumb of me not to have tried to read the rest of the poem. However, it was only those four lines that I came across somewhere and it is not my fault that I was unaware of the rest of the lines. Anyway, the only book I found at Abids and that too at the fag end of the hunt was a copy of ‘William Blake’ by Arthur Symons. It was a textbook, something I keep away from but since it was on a poet I like I bought it. Looking at it I thought it must have been published abroad. I was quite surprised to see on the back cover that it was published in Kolkata. I got it for fifty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 30-07-2017)

This Sunday too it was bright and sunny which was good weather but at the same time it had me a bit worried. It means that there hasn’t been any rain for almost two weeks. Out there in the countryside farmers will suffer if there is such a long gap since freshly sown crops would suffer from moisture stress. I hope it would rain in the next few days or else we could be in real trouble.
The Sunday book bazaar at Abids never fails to amaze me with the kind of books it sends into my haul. It is truly something wonderful since I’ve managed to maintain a blog for ten long years just writing about the books I find here. Imagine how many books I must have found here! I must have bought a couple of thousand books in the ten years I’ve had this blog up here. Someday I am going to pay a wonderful tribute to the Abids Sunday book bazaar. Wait for it.

Last Sunday too I ended up with another good haul of four wonderful titles. I had thought of taking a break and not buying anything but as usual I couldn’t resist. The first title I found was ‘A Town Like Alice’ by Nevil Shute. I see several copies of this book at Abids all the time but never thought of picking it up for some reason. Last Sunday however I saw a copy with an attractive cover and picked it just to look at it. I read the back cover and realized I was missing something good so I bought it. I got it for only thirty rupees.

There are some books I buy on impulse. Sometimes they turn out to be well known titles that I was ignorant about. I saw ‘Anya’ by Susan Fromberg Schaffer, a fat volume with a battered appearance. I hesitated for some time wondering whether if it was worth buying. I couldn’t decide but ended up buying it anyway. It seemed a good book though very lengthy that sometimes puts me off. I got it for fifty rupees.

Then there was another book that had a dull, worn out cover that I spotted in a heap of books being sold for twenty rupees. It was ‘Katherine Mansfield- A Secret Life’ by Claire Tomalin. Normally I do not go for biographies as I prefer autobiographies by writers. But this title was different since the subject was a writer and the biographer was a name I had read somewhere recently. The title sounded interesting and I was really curious to know what the secret was. The book on the whole was in a good condition except that the back cover was missing altogether. Despite the missing back cover I bought the book, another fat volume of … pages. I have no idea when I am going to begin reading this book.

The last find was a real treasure. The Sunday before in a heap of ten rupee books with a seller near Bata I had found a wonderful title, ‘A Sand County Almanac’ by Aldo Leopold. Last Sunday again in the same heap I found ‘Crazy Salad’ by Nora Ephron. I haven’t read anything by Nora Ephron but know enough that she is a good writer and so I picked it up. I have already started going through this collection of twenty five essays reading one every day .