The Sunday Haul (on 22-10-2017)

Last Sunday turned out to be another very lucky day at Abids for me for I got five fantastic books in the haul. Once again I was alone at Abids and maybe that is why I landed such a good haul because I was focused on the books spread out on the pavements. It was a bright, sunny morning as I set out for Abids hoping to find the copy of ‘The Green Road’ by Anne Enright that I had seen the previous Sunday and not really expected to find anything else. But I was wrong for I not only found ‘The Green Road’ but also found four other wonderful titles.

Luckily for me no one had bought ‘The Green Road’ by Anne Enright after I had seen it but had not picked it because the seller asked for too high a price. However last Sunday I was ready to pay whatever he asked and got it for two hundred rupees. It was a bit too high but I wanted the book so shelled out the cash. I relaxed after I held it in my hand and walked on only to stumble upon another wonderful find.

Hari presented me a brand new copy of ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi on my birthday in February. I read it and felt very sad afterwards reading about the young, talented surgeon’s futile struggle with cancer. Last Sunday I saw another copy of this book and picked it up hoping to give it to someone. It was one of the two books I spotted with the same seller, the other title being ‘The Hour Before Dawn’ by Bhabendra Nath Saikia. It is an English translation of an Assamese novel ‘Antoreep’ and the translation was done by Maitreyee S.C. It was a Penguin title plus the cover was something I couldn’t ignore. I got these two books together for a hundred and fifty rupees which seemed to be a fair price.

There’s a seller who doesn’t know the worth of some of the wonderful titles that he sometimes puts up for sale. He sells every title he has almost at the same price, sometimes twenty or thirty rupees. That was the price I paid for ‘The Moslem Wife and Other Stories’ by Mavis Gallant that he had. This is the second Mavis Gallant title I found. This collection has eleven stories selected by Mordecai Richler who also wrote the Afterword in it: About Geneva, When We Were Nearly Young; The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street; An Autobiography; Saturday; The Latehomecomer; In Youth Is Pleasure; The Moslem Wife; Grippes and Poche; Overhead in a Balloon. I was thrilled to pick up this title that I found so casually.

When ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan won the Booker in 2014 I decided I would read it if I manage to find a second hand copy. Finally I came across a copy last Sunday and bought it for just seventy rupees. Normally I do not buy books that do not have a cover and the copy of ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ too did not have a cover. The cover was a white paper on the front and the back with the front cover folded back to reveal the title that I luckily managed to spot. Cover or no cover I was damn pleased to have found this wonderful book that I plan to read soon.

Then there were three cookbooks I picked up in addition to the above five titles: ‘Cooking with Chicken’ by Kamal Mehta, ‘Creative Cookery’ by Rohini Singh and ‘The Pleasures of Kashmiri Cookery’ by Anu Wakhlu that I paid a little more than fifty rupees for.

The Sunday Haul (on 15-10-2017)

Last Sunday’s haul at Abids consisted of two cookbooks. Though I had spotted two good books I did not buy them because the prices were too high. But now I think I should have bought Anne Enright’s ‘The Green Road’ that I saw. The price of three hundred rupees that the seller quoted put me off and I did not even bargain with him and walked away. Anyway, it was the Sunday before Diwali so almost all the regular shops were open and the book sellers were scattered around. I was alone and it did not take me long to finish the round of all the booksellers and finding these two cookbooks. One of them was a hardcover and the other a paperback. Both were large sized books that any other seller would have asked for at least two hundred rupees but my favorite bookseller gave both to me for just a hundred rupees. I love this guy, really because he is so deferential and also gives me the books at whatever price I ask.

The popular chef Sanjeev Kapoor must have written scores of books on almost every cuisine one can think of. I see many of this cookbooks at Abids but I prefer only uncommon titles. When I saw his book on Konkan cuisine I picked it up. The other book I found at the same seller was ‘Meals & Menus’ by three authors one of whom turned out to be a Hyderabadi. I was surprised that the copy I found was signed by Anju Poddar, the Hyderabadi author, to someone. Anyway, it seemed interesting and so I picked it up along with the Konkani Cookbook by Sanjeev Kapoor.

A Happy Diwali to all of you.

The Sunday Haul (on 08-10-2017)

Since the past ten days or so Hyderabad has been drenched and soaked so much that it has become a wet rag. Almost every day it is raining and quite heavily at that. The heavy rains and the flooding it is causing is making the IT crowd in Madhapur crib like anything. Now they are getting a taste of what the rest of the city goes through whenever there is a heavy downpour. Last week the weather forecast said that it would rain on Sunday too. The forecast of rain on Sunday dampened my spirits because if it rained then I would have to stay home and miss the visit to Abids.

It did rain on Sunday but only after I’ve been halfway through my visit at Abids. There was a heavy downpour that lasted about half hour and left the roads flooded and also caught the booksellers unawares. However by then I had already picked up a book, the only book that made up the haul last Sunday.

I cannot resist a book on writing that I see. I am yet to get over the impression that reading books on writing will help me writer better so I scoop up anything I find about writing. The haul last Sunday at Abids was a book on writing that caught my eye in a lane. It was ‘The Art of Writing’ that had a very attractive cover with a picture of a flash of lightning over a lake by the mountainside. Inside I read that it was by Cosmo F. Ferrara published by Random House School Division, New York. It was an academic book on writing aimed at high school students but when I went through the contents and read a few random paragraphs I found it to be quite interesting. So I picked it up for a hundred rupees.
I decided to return home after the rain cleared a bit disappointed that I couldn’t check out more than half the sellers but glad that I bought a nice book.

The Sunday Haul (on 01-10-2017)

Last Sunday came immediately after the Dasara festival ended so the regular shops at Abids were closed making way for the sellers of second hand books to return to their original spots. With all the sellers back at Abids after the festival shopping was done I expected to land a good haul. With three books in the haul it wasn’t such a bad Sunday out at Abids last Sunday.

The first find was a nice copy of ‘Girl in Hyacinth Blue’ by Susan Vreeland. Vreeland had died in August this year. ‘Girl in Hyacinth Blue’ is one of her bestselling novels that was also made into a movie for television was what I could gather about Susan Vreeland online. I got this book for forty rupees.

The second find was a fantastic book. I spotted a copy of ‘Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories’ by Saul Bellow. This is a collection of four stories apart from the title story; What Kind of Day Did You Have? ; Zetland: By a Character Witness; A Silver Dish; and Cousins. It wasn’t in a good copy because the pages had moisture stains but I knew I won’t find another copy so I ended buying it. Instead of fixing the price himself the seller asked me to fix the price and said he would accept whatever I gave. I was flummoxed and offered to give seventy five rupees for it. He added five more rupees and fixed the price at eighty rupees that I paid.

The third and last find was at Chikkadpally. The previous Sunday I had seen a book at Chikkadpally I thought I should have bought. However I did not buy it since I had already bought four books and regretted after going home. But last Sunday I saw it again and picked up ‘Coming Forth by Day’ by Niranjana. ‘Coming Forth by Day’ is the English translation of a Kannada novel ‘Mrutyunjaya’ by Niranjana translated by Tejaswini Niranjana, his daughter.