The Bookfair Haul-2

Within an hour after reaching home after a long six day trip to Arunachal Pradesh I got ready to go out on another journey. This was a journey into the world of books. It was the last day of the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair and I did not want to miss visiting it since I had not visited after the second visit on the second day of the fair. I had picked up a total of five books on those two initial visits and I knew there were many more books I had not spotted. The visit on the last day of the book fair yielded another five titles taking the total number of books I had picked up at the 2018 Book Fair to ten. It is far less than the number of books I had bought at the book fair in the previous years but I am not complaining.

In the stall where I had picked up two titles on the earlier visit I managed to find two more titles I had not seen earlier. The first title I saw was a nice copy of Doris Lessing’s ‘Walking in the Shade’ the second volume of her autobiography. Though I do not have the first volume I picked up this copy in the hope that I would find the first volume someday. Besides, I cannot resist autobiographies of writers and so I made it the first find of the day.

In the same stall I spotted another book with a vivid cover with the title-‘The Virgin of Flames’ by Chris Abani. I have not heard or read about Chris Abani but I picked up this book solely on the strength of the blurb by Guardian on the front cover. I really hope this book is as good as it looks when I finally get around to reading it sometime soon.

Sometime earlier in the day I had come across a tweet by Uma Mahadevan Gupta who writes about books in ‘The Hindu’ where she had praised ‘Old Filth’ by Jane Gardam. Somehow the title stuck in my mind and imagine my wonder when I spotted the very book in another stall. I did not hesitate too long and picked it up. I thought it was a sort of minor miracle finding a title that someone had praised not too long ago.

Now I have been looking for a title, any title, by Elena Ferrante since long but wasn’t successful in finding them. But yesterday at the book fair I got lucky and came across an almost brand new copy of ‘The Lost Daughter’ by Elena Ferrante. I wanted to buy it whatever the price but the book seller was the friendly book seller who gave me a free pass this year also, and who reduced the price for me to a hundred and eighty rupees. I was glad at last I now have an Elena Ferrante title to read.

There are very few foodies who do not know about the famous ‘Moti Mahal’ in Delhi. It is an institution by itself because I have read about this eatery so many times that I plan to visit it on my next visit to Delhi. The butter chicken and tandoori chicken were two of the several creations of Kundan Lal Gujral who founded ‘Moti Mahal’ in Darya Ganj. I did not know that there’s a book on it until I spotted a hardcover copy of ‘Moti Mahal’s Tandoori Trail’ by Monish Gujral in a different second hand book stall at the book fair. It is an interesting book with an introduction by Uma Vasudev interspersed with photographs of Kundan Lal Gujral with various celebrities like Sam Manekshaw, Nargis, Zakir Hussain, Nehru, Indira Gandhi and others. Of course, there are several recipes of the dishes served in Moti Mahal. I felt very glad finding this unique title that was the last find of the five book haul on the last day of the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair.

The Book Fair Haul

The only event in Hyderabad I look forward to very eagerly is the Book Fair that is usually held in the month of December. This year is unique since the 31st Hyderabad National Book Fair was held in the month of January, 2018 and the 32nd is being held in the same year. Anyway, I was there on the very first day even before it was officially inaugurated. However, since it was the Vice-President who was inaugurating the fair I had to wait outside for some time before the cops let us in. As soon as I entered I went straight to the second hand book stores from out of town and managed to find two interesting titles on the first day of the Book Fair.

The first title I found was ‘The Opposite House’ by Helen Oyeyemi. I had read about Helen Oyeyemi somewhere and the name rang a bell when I saw it on the cover of a book. The other title I picked up was one I had found recently elsewhere. But I did not want to leave ‘Havanas in Camelot’ by William Styron behind so I picked it up. I did not get them cheap though for I had to pay three hundred and fifty rupees for the two titles.
There were about 350 stalls out of which the second hand book stalls were more than a dozen, almost of all of them Hyderabad based sellers, the ones I see in Abids every Sunday. Sadly there were only two or three from other places. Another disappointing thing was that the collection of second hand titles did not appear to be as good as those in the previous years.

But on the next day, Sunday as it happens, I found some more interesting titles after a careful search. There were huge crowds which was a heartening sight to watch as people went around with several bags filled with books in their hands. This must be the only occasion when one sees so many people who love books at one place. Quite unusually, I couldn’t spot anyone who I see regularly at Abids on Sundays.

I found a nice copy of ‘The Music of Love’ by Dorothy Green which turned out to be a collection of essays on literature. I picked it up since it was a Penguin title and also because the author was an Australian. There are nineteen essays in this collection and I hope to read them one by one leisurely. Then in the same place I found another collection of food writing and this was again by Penguin. The copy of ‘Out to Lunch’ by Paul Levy that I found was in good shape and I picked it up because while leafing through it I found there was a lengthy piece about the author’s visit to India titled ‘India diary’ in it.

When I visited the stall owned by a friendly bookseller at Abids who gives me a free entry pass every year I saw him seated but couldn’t find any title worth buying. I did not want to leave without buying anything from him so I looked all over once again and found a beautiful copy of ‘A Lesson Before Dying’ by Ernst J. Gaines that I bought. I paid him more than what he asked for it and that seemed to make him happy.

The Sunday Haul (on 09.12.2018)

With the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair just a week away, on Sunday I was wondering whether to go to Abids and saddle myself with some more books. But I went more out of habit than a real need to buy more books. It was the second Sunday of the month and so The Hindu had the Literary Review supplement in which Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta had written about her visit to Sri Lanka in an article where she had also mentioned some lines from Sri Lankan author Ashok Ferrey’s ‘Serendipity.’ Quite coincidentally ‘Serendipity’ by Ashok Ferrey was the first title I spotted at Abids. I did not need much persuasion and so I picked it up for just thirty rupees.

Another good title I found was a nice copy of ‘One Thousand Nights on a Bed of Stones and Other Stories’ by K.A. Abbas which was published by Jaico in 1957. The book has ten stories: Wheat and Roses; Maharaja’s Elephant; Cartoon; Evening in Paris; Dead Letter; Sparrows; The Mark of an Indian; Ajanta; and Five Faces of Mother India. I got this book for only twenty rupees from a pile.

I usually check out old copies of hardcover titles in the hope of finding something rare and interesting especially if they have no covers and one cannot tell the book unless it is opened. I spotted one such hardcover bound in brown with a seller who sensed I was interested in it. On the inside page was the title- ‘Of the Raj, Maharajas and Me’ by M.A. Sreenivasan, another memoir by a civil servant. I try to avoid such books because they are usually dry accounts of their service in some posting they think is interesting and write every minute detail of each and every incident as if they were earth-shaking events. But this title appeared different because the publisher was Ravi Dayal there were beautiful old black and white photographs inside and the language too was very different. M.A. Sreenivasan was an ICS officer and from what I read while randomly turning over the pages he seems to have had some interesting experiences that I wanted to read more about. So I bought it and added it to the growing pile in the Sunday haul.

The find of the day was a beautiful copy of ‘The Big Sleep and Other Novels’ by Raymond Chandler. I already have a copy of ‘The Big Sleep’, a copy of ‘Farewell, My Lovely’ and also a copy of ‘The Big Sleep’ but ‘The Big Sleep and Other Novels’ had all these three Chandler classics in one place so that was enough reason for me to pick this up. However it did not come cheap and I had to pay more than two hundred rupees for this lovely title.

The Haul at New Delhi

After a long wait last week I managed to visit Pahargunj in New Delhi to check out ‘Jacksons Books’ that I had read about several years ago. Barely a fortnight after visiting Kohima I got the chance to visit New Delhi last week to attend a five-day training course. The venue was YMCA on Jai Sing Road which made it easy for me to explore many places in the evening after the training sessions of the day ended.

Last Monday, the very first day of the training course, as soon as the sessions ended I started for Paharganj with two things on my mind. I couldn’t do the first thing which was to have the chole bhature at Diwan Chand Sitaram of which I had read about recently. The place was closed by the time I reached there at around half past five in the evening. I was a bit disappointed about it but Jacksons Books was open which lifted my mood greatly.
‘Jacksons Books’ is a small roadside store but it is a minor treasure house. The titles are mostly those that foreign tourists visiting India would read up before landing in the country. There were books on spirituality, yoga, and travelogues on India by Eric Newby, Paul Theroux mostly. There were several copies of ‘The Pillars of Hercules’ ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’, ‘Dark Star Safari’ and other Paul Theroux titles that I almost bought but for the prices.

The first title I spotted in Jackson’s Books was a beautiful copy of ‘Simon Winchester’s Calcutta’ by Simon Winchester. The copy I found was almost new. I had recently read ‘Longing Belonging’ by Bishwanath Ghosh before visiting Kolkata briefly a fortnight ago, and wanted to read more about Kolkata so I bought it. I really hope the book is good because I had to pay quite a hefty sum for it.

The next find was another new looking title-‘The Ghosts of Meenambakkam’ by Ashokamitran. Ashokamitran happens to be one of my favourite writers so I picked it up without a second thought. For this too I had to pay a big sum but I did not mind because it was an Ashokamitran title. I read the slim book on the flight home from New Delhi and somehow I did not find it as good as other Ashokamitran titles.

A long time ago I had picked up a book by Laurens van der Post on a hunch. It was a copy of ‘Venture to the Interior’ that I read soon after and was found it interesting. So when I found ‘A Walk with a White Bushman’ by Laurens van der Post I added it to the haul. This book didn’t come cheap though.

There were more books in another room in a lane just beside the store that I decided to check out another day. On the last day of the training course just before leaving for the airport I once again went to Pahargunj. Though it was not yet five in the evening I was once again disappointed to see that there was no chole bhature left at Sitaram Dewan Chand that had downed its shutters.

I finally got to see the other stock of Jacksons Books kept in another room a few steps away. Here too there were books in almost all the languages of the world and in the large section of books in English I managed to spot a beautiful new copy of ‘Journals of John Cheever’ by John Cheever. It is one big tome and the kind of book I like to read and I bought it though I had to shell out four hundred rupees for it.
With four books making up the haul at New Delhi the visit was more meaningful than some of my past visits to the capital.

Friday Double Post- Post 1 of 2: The Haul at Kolkata

Last week I had been to Kohima in Nagaland to attend a workshop there. I had planned my return trip in such a way that I would get to spend about six hours in Kolkata. I wanted to visit College Street that I had been dreaming about after reading a lot about the book sellers there. Last Thursday finally I was at College Street. It was a momentous occasion for me as it has taken several year for me to be here.

After landing at Kolkata from Dimapur around three in the afternoon we rented a cab and took off for College Street. I had been told that there would be heavy traffic and was advised to start for the airport about three hours before my flight. So I had an eye on the time and another eye on the books in the numerous stalls on College Street. I hadn’t done much research so missed out on some things. For example I did not know that India Coffee House was somewhere around where I could have stopped for a cup of coffee.

However, I managed to find five good titles after looking around for a couple of hours. Almost all the book stalls in College Street seemed to sell only textbooks so I had to search for stalls that sold general books. Luckily I was guided to such stalls sporting boards that said ‘English Literature’ where I picked up the books. In all the articles I read about the book sellers of College Street the sellers were described as people who knew a lot about books and would be able to get almost any title that you asked for. They may have been more knowledgeable than the book sellers in Abids here in Hyderabad but they were not as knowledgeable as I thought they’d be. I had a list of titles and also authors whose books I wanted to read and that I thought I might get at College Street. In my list were Kapuscinski, Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, and others. But other than Arun Joshi’s ‘The Foreigner’ they did not have any title in my list which was a big disappointment.

In one stall I found two titles on writing that I already have. I found a paperback copy of ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ by Haruki Murakami, and yet another copy of ‘The Summing Up’ by Somerset Maugham. I got the two titles for a hundred rupees each. The next find was a copy of ‘Collected Lyrics’ by Edna St Vincent Millay. The first ever book I had bought in my life way back in 1993 was a hardbound copy of ‘Twentieth Century American Poetry’ edited by Conrad Aiken. One of the numerous poets featured in this book was Edna St Vincent Millay. It was my first serious encounter with good poetry other than the stuff I read in school. ‘Renascence’ was one of the three poems by St Vincent Millay that was in this collection. I was glad to buy the copy of ‘Collected Lyrics’ by Edna St Vincent Millay but I think I made a big mistake not buying the mammoth copy of Allen Ginsberg’s verse that I saw at the same stall. It wasn’t in such a good condition and it was one reason why I did not buy it apart from the fact it was rather too heavy.

Another interesting title I found was a nice copy of ‘Which Lie Did I Tell?’ by William Goldman that was a sequel to his famous ‘Adventures in the Screen Trade.’ I had bought a hard cover copy of this many years ago, long before I began this blog. I bought the hardcover copy of ‘What Lie Did I Tell?’ for a hundred and fifty rupees in the stall that also had many other movie-related titles. Unfortunately a few days later I read about Goldman’s death.

Another interesting find was a copy of ‘Etruscan Places’ by DH Lawrence that was one of the travel titles that I had been looking for. I was overjoyed to find this title that I got for a hundred rupees. It was this book that I started reading this book in the plane taking me to Hyderabad.
At College Street I did not bargain much and shelled out whatever the sellers asked for. I found these sellers to be very polite, and deferential after they realized that I was a serious buyer. I wish I had more time to see each and every stall but that would require at least one full day. I had someone with me who wasn’t very interested in books and was impatient as I hopped from one stall to another. I did not want to make him unhappy so I reluctantly stopped midway and got into the cab satisfied that I had been to College Street. I wonder when I will get to visit it again. After having been to Darya Ganj in New Delhi only recently, College Street in Kolkata last week it is Mumbai’s Flora Fountain that I want to go next to look for more books.

Friday Double Post- Post 2 of 2: The Sunday Haul (on 18-11-2018)

Barely had three days passed since returning from Kolkata with a haul of five books at College Street and I was once again browsing in Abids on Sunday for more books. I bought four books from a seller who keeps aside titles he thinks I might like. Though they weren’t something I really wanted to buy and read I did not have the heart to tell him because he is such a nice person. I ended up buying all these books from him paying him more than he asked because it was his first sale of the day and I did not want to bargain with him.

The first title in the lot he had kept aside was a copy of ‘The Price of a Wife’ by G.D. Khosla that appeared quite interesting for it was by a little known (at least to me) Indian writer and that the book was a collection of 22 short stories. Of late I had begun to adding books by Indian authors published in the late fifties and sixties to my growing collection of such books. This was the second GD Khosla title I have with me now after ‘A Way of Loving’ that I found recently and about which I have yet to write here.

The next book in the lot of books the seller had kept aside was one which I would never find the time to read in this lifetime because of its length. It was an almost new copy of ‘Chaplin- His Life and Art’ by David Robinson which is almost nine hundred pages long. To think I got this book for just fifty rupees just amazes me.

Another interesting title in the lot was a nice copy of ‘Collected Essays’ by Aldous Huxley. This has about forty five essays on various subjects under different sections, such as Travel which includes a piece on Jaipur, Psychology, Music, Painting, History, and so on.

The last title was a beautiful copy of ‘Fasting Feasting’ by Anita Desai that I almost did not take. At the last minute I added this book to the Sunday haul. With this book the total number of books I’ve bought this year is an astounding 230. There’s still December left, and the Hyderabad Book Fair that I am told is from 15th December to 25th December. By the end of the year I would have bought more than 250 books.

The Sunday Haul (on 11-11-2018)

With Diwali and the Diwali shoppers out of the way Abids was back to its old self last Sunday with the second hand booksellers at their usual spots when I went as usual to look for good titles. Since I rarely return from these trips empty handed last Sunday I managed to pick up a lot of five interesting books.

Sometimes I come across books that I somehow feel are special in some way. Either it is because of the title or the name of the author or the way the book is, one gets the strong urge to pick it up. When I saw a hardcover copy of ‘The Mouse and His Child’ by Russel Hoban I felt that I had to take it though I don’t (unfortunately) read much fiction meant for children.

Then next find was a title I remembered having read about long back which was ‘I Never Promised You a Rose Garden’ by Hannah Green. I spotted this title in a heap of books selling for twenty rupees and picked it up. A few minutes after I picked it up I found a nice copy of ‘Love and Friendship’ by Alison Lurie. I bought it mainly because it was a Penguin title and I trust Penguin to publish only very good books.

The next find, the fourth title of the day, was a beautiful, old cookbook, one of a collection of foods from different regions. I picked up the hardcover old book with the title ‘Foods of the Orient-India’ introduced by Sharmini Thiruchelvam, on the cover. I bought the title published in 1978 more for its looks than the recipes inside.

The fifth and last title was actually more of a booklet than a real book. I spotted a copy of ‘Kate Humble’s Guide to 100 Birds of Britain’ by The Telegraph in a different heap of books selling for just ten rupees. I hope it gets me into some keen birdwatching though I may not find the birds described in it.

The Sunday Haul (on 04-11-2018)

More than half the regular shops at Abids were open than was the case last Sunday displacing the second hand book sellers who usually sold their wares on the pavement before these stores. Not that it made any difference to me, because I managed to find some really interesting titles during my couple of hours’ browsing before the shoppers trooped in.

A few years ago I had found a tattered copy of ‘Travels with a Donkey’ by RL Stevenson that had many termite holes in it but nevertheless I bought it because I haven’t found the book till then. Last Sunday I found a better copy of the same title that was published in 1955 and bought it for thirty rupees.

I became a big fan of Ross Thomas after finding one of his titles out of pure accident in a heap of books at Abids a long time back and thereafter the other titles by him appeared one by one. But the Ross Thomas titles I most desperately wanted to find were ‘Missionary Stew’, ‘The Cold War Swap’ and ‘The Seersucker Whipsaw.’ Last Sunday I happened to glance at a heap of books I don’t really care to look at because they are all Mills & Boons titles and other obscure titles, I got a thrill when I saw a book that lay askew. It was a copy of ‘Missionary Stew’ by Ross Thomas and I grabbed it like it was a brick of gold. It was a hardcover library copy with the jacket intact that I got for just twenty rupees. Inside the stamps said it was from Sandpoint-Bonner County Library, Idaho and another stamp said it was purchased from the estate of Juanita Rhodes. Whatever its origins it looked like a first edition from Simon & Schuster, New York.

The next find was a nice copy of ‘Dave Barry’s Money Secrets’ by Dave Barry that I purchased without a second thought because I cannot resist anything by Dave Barry. I already have a copy of this title but I bought it because there are many I know who haven’t yet discovered how funny Dave Barry is.

The last find of the day was at Chikkadpally. I found a nice copy of ‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison that I had missed buying sometime ago at Abids. It hadn’t been a good enough copy so I had let it be but the copy I found last Sunday was in a fine condition so I bought it. It cost me seventy rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 28-10-2018)

With the festival of Diwali not too far away the shopkeepers at Abids had kept their shops open on Sunday which meant that some of the booksellers who sell their books on the pavements before these shops had to move away to other spots. Apart from these few booksellers who moved the other booksellers were at their usual places. It was a bit warm last Sunday as I and Uma browsed for books and I ended up finding four good titles.

I have to think of a drastic way to prevent myself from buying books on writing because I have about two hundred such books at home and despite reading all of them I do not seem to have improved on my writing skills. Last Sunday the first title I found was a copy of ‘The Creative Writing Course book’ edited by Julia Bell and Paul Magrs. It was quite bulky and looked like it would be of some use to me so I bought it.

The second and third finds were crime fiction titles by authors I had never heard about. The second title I found was a book that looked like it had changed a lot of hands and that had an attractive cover. It was a copy of ‘The Quiller Memorandum’ by Adam Hall, and I was surprised to find on the cover that it had been made into a movie starring Alec Guinness, Max Von Sydow, and the screenplay is by none other than Harold Pinter! I got this title pretty cheap, at just ten rupees only.

The other crime fiction title I picked up was a hardcover copy with jacket, of ‘Mandrake’ by Paul Eddy who was another writer I hadn’t read about anywhere till then. Paul Eddy, I read inside, was the creator of ‘Flint’ who also I have never read about. Anyway, I was glad I found this title that had a lot of praise on the blurbs at the back. This too I got pretty cheap, twenty rupees only.

The last find was a cookbook that I would have bought anyway but something on the cover caught my attention. On the cover of ‘Traditional Indian Cooking’ by Amiya Chaudhuri it was mentioned that inside was an essay on ‘Gastronomy in India’ by Nirad C. Chaudhuri. Inside I found the original bill of ‘Book World Enterprises’ Kalbadevi Road, Bombay dated 4/12/1993. For twenty five years the receipt was inside the book and no one had taken it out. It gives an impression that whoever bought it may not have used the book.

Another Midweek Haul

Last Friday while on the way to Hitex, I spotted the second hand bookstore in Madhapur I remember seeing a couple of years back. I decided to check it out on the way back later in the evening. On the way home I stopped at ‘Liberty’ bookstore and picked up three titles that I couldn’t resist buying though I already possess two of the three titles.

A long time back I had seen a copy of ‘The Well of Loneliness’ at Abids but I did not buy it because I found it too bulky and the price too was not within my reach. Recently I had been thinking about all the good titles I had missed buying because I was too dumb to realize their value at that time. ‘The Well of Loneliness’ was one such title featuring in those thoughts of regret. But last Friday when I spotted it again I was once again reassured that when it comes to books I am very lucky.

The copy of ‘The Well of Loneliness’ by Radclyffe Hall I found was in a very good condition and I felt very glad having found this interesting title. However it runs into several hundreds of pages and I wonder when I would be able to find the time to read it.

The second find was a hard cover copy of ‘On Writing Well’ by William Zinsser which was clearly much used. I have a couple of copies of this title at home but I bought this copy as well since I have in mind someone to give it away to.

I have three copies of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ by Dashiell Hammett that I picked up at various times but I can never resist buying one more copy of this crime classic. It was a beautiful paperback copy that appeared to have been never opened. I got these three titles for three hundred rupees which was more than what I would have paid for them at Abids.

Friday Double Post- #2. The Sunday Haul (on 21-10-2018)

With the Dasara festival over and the shopping frenzy paused before the Diwali shopping frenzy begins again, the second hand booksellers were back at their usual places at Abids last Sunday. The first find of the day was a wonderful title. I spotted a nice copy of ‘Hot Days Long Nights; An Anthology of African Short Stories’ Edited by Nadezda Obradovic. It turned out to be a NBT publication. NBT books are generally cheaper but the price on this copy was rubbed out so I had no idea about the original price. I bought it for a hundred rupees which wasn’t much given that the copy I got was quite good. It had twenty six stories but the best thing about it was that it had a foreword by Chinua Achebe. I read the foreword where Achebe mentioned ‘People of the City’ by Cyprian Ekwensi that I had picked up at a bookstall at last year’s Hyderabad Literary Festival. However another title was also mentioned along with it and it was ‘Palm Wine Drunkard’ by Amos Tutuola which is one title I want to lay my hands on.

These are the stories in it: A Handful of Dates by Tayeb Salih; The Advance by Henri Lopes; Papa, Snake & I by Luis Bernardo Honwana; A Child in the Bush of Ghosts by Olympe Bhely-Quenum; It was Easter Sunday The Day I went to Netreg by Sindiwe Magona; The Brother by Charles Mungoshi; The Dignity of Begging by William (Bloke) Modisane; The Garden of Evil by William Saidi; Bossy by A.R. Gurnah; A Night Out by Tololwa marti Mollel; Hot Days, Long Nights by Nnadazie F. Inyama; Her Three Days by Sembene Ousmane; A Life in Detail by Mohammed Berrada; The Three-Piece Suit by Ali Deb; The Wicked Tongue by Mohammed Moulessehoul; Four Dimensions by I.N.C. Aniebo; Thought Tracks in the Snow by Dambudzo Marechera; Waiting for a Turn by Ken Lipenga; The Other City by Ibrahim Abdel Megid; God of Meme by Ndeley Mokoso; Africa Kills Her Sun by Ken Saro-Wiva; At the Time of the Jasmine by Alifa Rifat; The Last Battle by Ossie O. Enekwe; Civil War I-VII by Adewale Majaa-Pearce; The Point of No Return by Miriam M. Tlali; The Winner by Barbara Kiwenye. Of all these writers I have read about Charles Mungoshi, A.R. Gurnah, and Ken Saro-Wiwa only, sadly. But I am glad now I can read more of African writers.

Along with Dave Barry, Bill Bryson is another writer I enjoy reading. I have read all his books and also have copies of almost all his titles. Yet whenever I see a good copy of any book I have enjoyed reading I buy it with a vague intention to give to people who have similar tastes. This was the reason why I picked up a nice copy of ‘The Lost Continent’ by Bill Bryson though I already own a copy.

The last find was a cookbook I had seen listed somewhere as one of the ‘must have’ classic cookbook title. So when I spotted ‘The Complete Indian Cookbook’ by Mridula Baljekar I grabbed it right away. It was a beautiful hardcover copy that I got for just a hundred rupees.

Friday Double Post- #1.The Sunday Haul (on 13-10-2018)

Despite the festival shopping spree disturbing the second hand book sellers at Abids from their usual spots some of the managed to hold on to their original spots making it easy for me to end up with a nice haul of six interesting titles. In the list of travel classics mentioned in ‘Lonely Planet’s Travel Writing’ by Don George the ‘The Road to Oxiana’ by Robert Byron features. I had always thought it would be some ancient book that would be impossible to get hold of anywhere so I did not pay much attention to finding more about it online. Imagine my surprise and utter delight when I spotted a copy of the same title at Abids last Sunday. The copy I found was published in 2007 and had an introduction by Colin Thubron. I paid a hundred rupees for it. This is another wonderful addition to my collection of travel literature classics.

Next I spotted a book that seemed very old and much read with top corners of the last few pages nibbled away as if by rats. It was a copy of ‘The Appointment’ by Leone Antonio Viola and on the cover page it said that the novel was made into a movie starring Omar Sharif and Anouk Aimee. But when I read on the back cover that the screenplay was by James Salter and the movie was directed by Sydney Lumet I instantly decided to buy it. I’ve already started reading it and I am very impressed at the pace at which the novel moves propelled by the simple sentences. However, after I finished reading it today I found that it had a sad ending.

The next three finds were cookbooks. One good find was a nice, hardbound copy of ‘English Bread and Yeast Cookery’ by Elizabeth David that I bought though I have no plans of baking bread or anything like that now or in the future. I bought it because it looked too good to let go though I had to shell out a hundred rupees for it. The next cookbook was a copy of Potatoes- 101 Quick, Easy & Delicious Recipes’ by Rajni Khurana, another title that I bought just for the cover alone. I got this for forty rupees.

The last find was a small book, something that looked like it was published in the 70’s and seemed quite attractive judging by the cover. It was a copy of ‘Indian Cuisine: Dal & Roti’ by Vimla Patil. I got this book for just twenty rupees.

A Midweek Haul

Only the day before, on the previous Sunday, I had returned from Abids with a haul of six good titles and on Tuesday last I felt an overwhelming urge to drop in at a Secondhand bookstore. It was a holiday for us because of a local festival and instead of sitting at home and reading I decided to check out a bookstore and ended up finding three good titles. I also stumbled upon a set of titles that led to the biggest haul of my life. I will write it in the next post but the three titles first.

A couple of Sundays ago I had come across an issue of ‘The Journal of Indian Writing in English’ edited by GS Balarama Gupta and picked it up because the entire issue was devoted to Ahmed Ali, a novelist I hadn’t heard about before. I had remembered seeing a copy of his most famous novel- ‘Twilight in Delhi’ somewhere. I was not exactly looking for it when I went to the Best Bookstore at Lakdikapul on Tuesday but I found a nice copy of ‘Twilight in Delhi’ by Ahmed Ali sitting pretty on a shelf. I was thrilled to find it so soon after reading about the book in the above journal. It was a nice copy published in India as a paperback in 1973 by Sterling Publishers, New Delhi.

The next find was a nice copy of ‘Through the Window’ by Julian Barnes. This is a book containing, as it says on the cover- seventeen essays and one short story. I am glad I found this wonderful title because the essays are about writers like Penelope Fitzgerald, Lorrie Moore, George Orwell and many others and their writing. These are the essays: The Deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald; The ‘Unpoetical’ Clough; George Orwell and the F***ing Elephant; Ford’s The Good Soldier; Ford and Provence; Ford’s Anglican Saint; Kipling’s France; France’s Kipling; The Wisdom of Chamfort; The Man Who Saved Old France; The Profile of Felix Feneon; Michel Houellebecq and the Sin of Despair; Translating Madame Bovary; Wharton’s The Reef; Homage to Hemingway; a Short Story; Lorrie Moore Takes Wing; Remembering Updike, Remembering Rabbit; and Regulating Sorrow. This did not come cheap though. I had to shell out two hundred rupees for it.

I’ve come across very few travelogues by Indian writers. One was RK Narayan’s travelogue on Karnataka that I found recently. I found another travelogue-‘Dead and Living Cities’ by Manohar Malgonkar in the bookstore, my third find of the day. One reason I bought it was that it was a travelogue and that too by an Indian writer and the other reason was that the copy I found was perfectly encased in a plastic jacket that seemed to have preserved the book very nicely.

The Sunday Haul (on 07-10-2018)

Though the festival season was just around the corner which means that the second hand book sellers at Abids have to move on to other spots because the regular shops remain open for the festive shoppers last Sunday the scene was different. Only one store, the Hollywood Shoes, was open and the sellers who usually spread out the books on the space before this store moved out other sellers were more or less at their usual spots because not many stores were open.

This was a title I had seen earlier but somehow hadn’t thought of buying it. Last Sunday I spotted another copy and picked up ‘Yayati’ by VS Khandekar after reading on the cover that he had won the Jnanpith Award. The copy I found appeared like it was one of the earlier editions so that was another reason I picked it up apart from wanting to read it.

The ‘Essential Andhra Cookbook’ by Bilkees Latif was a book I had earlier missed buying after I first spotted it and thought it would be around. But when I went the next time it was gone. But last Sunday it turned up again and this time I did not want to take any chances and bought it though the seller asked a bomb for it. I paid a hundred rupees for it and guess what a couple of days later I spotted another copy with the seller who sits near the Telephone Bhavan in Saifabad on all days.

The next find happened to be an interesting cookbook- ‘Indian Vegetarian Delights’ by Malini Bisen. It is supposed to contain recipes that avoid onion and the reason is that the book was published during the years when onion supply was hit and they sold at very high prices. It was sometime in the nineties and the inside page says the same.

A couple of years back I had found a copy of ‘Islands of the Marigold Sun’ by Suresh Vaidya but the cover was missing. However I bought it but haven’t read it yet. Last Sunday I found another copy of the same title but with the cover. I bought it for just fifteen rupees along with another book which was a nice copy of ‘Just a Matter of Mistresses’ by Mayah Balse. I am familiar with the name because I keep seeing copies of ‘The Singer’ by her. Next time I see it I will buy it because the books by Mayah Balse seemed to have been published sometime in the 60’s and I love books published during those years.

The last find was a nice copy of ‘In the Skin of a Lion’ by Michael Ondaatje that I found at Chikkadpally. I got it for fifty rupees and I was glad I found another title by Ondaatje.