The Sunday Haul (on 26-08-2018)

The Sunday before last Sunday at Abids I had spotted a copy of ‘Pather Panchali’ on the pavements with one of the sellers. I picked it up to take a look and noticed that the copy was published by Allied Publishers and was actually in quite a good condition except that the cover page had moisture stains. Somehow I did not buy it which was quite a dumb thing to do that I realized after I got home.

Last Sunday as soon as I parked my two wheeler at Abids I decided that the first thing I’d do would be to pick up the copy of ‘Pather Panchali’. I just hoped nobody had shown interest in the book and taken it. When I reached the spot where I had seen the book I was in for a terrible shock. Not only could I spot the book I couldn’t spot the seller also. The seller himself was missing! It seems he had decided not to set up shop last Sunday.

With that disappointment in my heart I browsed listlessly along with Danny hoping to find something that would help me overcome it. I saw a title by a writer I have never come across before. I decided to buy it after I read on the cover that it had been made into a movie starring Michael Caine. It was ‘Alfie’ by Naughton that I got for twenty rupees only. This was the only title I bought last Sunday.

The Sunday Haul (on 19-08-2019)

In the collection of books that I have painstakingly managed to build over the years there are a few titles I have had multiple copies of. Three copies of ‘Ex-libris’ by Anne Fadiman, three copies of ‘All About H.Hatterr’ by GV Desani, three copies of ’84, Charing Cross Road’ by Helene Hanff, more than four copies of ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk & White, several copies of many Dave Barry titles and also ‘Get Shorty’ by Elmore Leonard, nearly half a dozen copies of ‘The Summing Up’ by Somerset Maugham, and more than a dozen copies of ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King which is a title I keep finding at Abids quite regularly.

Last Sunday too I spotted a beautiful, almost brand new copy of ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King and got it for sixty rupees. I don’t understand why I can never leave a copy of this behind without buying it. Since it was the first book I found at Abids I was thrilled that the day was turning out to be another Sunday that would have me taking home some really good finds in the haul.

I haven’t read anything by Amitabha Bagchi and after reading wonderful reviews praising his ‘Half the Night is Gone by almost all the reviewers I have been wondering whether to buy it online or wait until I find it somewhere. But before I could do any of this I spotted a nice hardcover copy of ‘This Place’ by Amitabha Bagchi. I thought maybe reading ‘This Place’ before reading ‘Half the Night is Gone’ would be a better thing to do and so added this title to the haul along with a copy of ‘Cat and Mouse’ by Gunter Grass, another writer I haven’t read.

The fourth and last title I found at Abids was a beautiful copy of ‘The Best of Samaithu Par’ by S. Meenakshi Ammal. I had been looking for this title since for quite some time but had not come across it even once. But I got lucky last Sunday and found a nice copy that I’ll cook through someday.

The Sunday Haul (on 12-08-2018)

The haul of books I make every Sunday at Abids is usually an interesting lot with titles I cannot find anywhere and also, sometimes, includes a surprise find. Last Sunday however I was in for a double surprise. It had rained quite heavily the previous day and the forecast was that it would continue to rain on Sunday too. Luckily it did not rain on Sunday though the sky was overcast. I came home with six books but five titles.

The first book I found at Abids was a really old one, the type face on the cover giving the impression that the book was printed sometime around the fifties. On the cover was this title-‘The Street of Ink’ by K. Iswara Dutt. I was intrigued by the title and when I looked inside it turned out to be some sort of memoir by a journalist. I flipped through a few pages and saw that there was something about the time spent by the author in Hyderabad as PRO of Hyderabad and was also a journalist who rubbed shoulders with the high and mighty of the time. I became excited when I saw that it was published in Masulipatnam in 1956 by Triveni Publishers and printed at Huxley Press in Madras. I got this interesting title for fifty rupees.
Next to -‘The Street of Ink’ by K. Iswara Dutt was a nice copy of ‘Grifter’s Game’ by Lawrence Block that I picked up for thirty rupees. After finding these two books I sat in the Irani café chatting with my friend over a cup of chai.

Since a couple of weeks I’ve been seeing dozens of books from ‘Books n More’ library of Marredpally in Hyderabad that seems to have folded up. When I spotted a copy of the 1972 edition of ‘The Foreigner’ by Arun Joshi I was thrilled that I had found a second copy of the same edition. Sometime back I had found the same edition but it wasn’t in a good condition with the cover coming apart. But this copy was in a plastic jacket and seemed to be from the library. I got it for fifty rupees. Even before I could come out of the excitement of finding this lovely copy I spotted another copy of the same title but it was a later edition 1993 that I see often. But I cannot resist anything by Arun Joshi so I picked up this copy too making it the tenth or twelfth copy that I possess.

In another heap of the same library’s books that were with another seller who was selling them for twenty rupees each I saw a copy of ‘Some Inner Fury’ by Kamala Markandaya. This too seemed an original edition published in 1956 in the United States of America. It was in a fair condition encased in a plastic jacket. I bought it along with a copy of ‘The Happy Highwayman’ by Leslie Charteris from the same heap of books from ‘Books n More’ library. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1963. I had heard about ‘The Saint’ but I don’t know much about it so this title gives me the opportunity to know more.

The Sunday Haul (on 05-08-2018)

It was another ‘solo’ Sunday for me at Abids last Sunday when I had no friends by my side while foraging through the piles of books on the pavements. Being alone meant I could take my own time browsing and trying to focus on spotting titles that looked good. In the couple of hours I was at Abids I ended up with a nice haul of five interesting titles.

The first title I found was one I had read about a long time ago. It was a copy of ‘And Some Take a Lover’ by Dina Mehta that I spotted lying on the pavement among other titles. It is a Rupa title published in 1992. The title comes from a poem ‘Don Juan’ Canto II by Lord Byron. The book runs into more than three hundred pages and I got it for just fifty rupees.

In my notebook I had jotted down a few titles of poetry by Denis Johnson after I read about him somewhere. I forgot to write down where I had come across Denis Johnson’s name but when I saw it on the cover of a book I saw with a seller at Abids I picked it up. It was a nice copy of ‘Already Dead’ by Denis Johnson, and it was a fiction title. I hesitated a bit before buying it but ultimately bought it for thirty rupees.

A few minutes later at another seller I saw a copy of ‘Indian Recipes’ by Premila Lal. I think I have a book by Premila Lal that I had picked up recently but the cookbook I saw looked attractive so I couldn’t resist buying it. I got it for eighty rupees.

The next find was by someone I had never heard before but turned out to a New Zealander who lived in India and was a newspaper correspondent. When I saw the cover of ‘A Frog in My Soup’ by Harry Miller I was intrigued by the picture of an Indian boy with three Slender Lori sitting on his head. Even more interesting was an inscription by someone called Suchi to Akhilee on one of the front pages. The book did not come cheap though. I almost decided not to buy it but the seller was ready to give it to me at the rate I quoted, a fourth of what he had asked.

The last find was a book I had spotted sometime two Sundays ago but hadn’t bought because I have already a copy of it and have also read the book. It was a good copy of ‘Paro’ by Namita Gokhale and I decided to buy it because I had enjoyed reading it and thought there would be someone I could give it to. I got the book for just thirty rupees.

Eleven Years of the Blog and The Sunday Haul (on 29-07-2018)

I am dimly aware of why I keep buying books week after week but I am finding it a bit difficult to understand why I am keeping this blog going. I don’t really relish the idea of writing the posts here as regularly as I am doing so it is not that I love to write and I also am not looking to be famous or popular with this blog. But I’ve managed to keep this blog going for eleven long years somehow. I have no idea of how long the blog will last but right now I am thinking of a short break of a couple of weeks.

Books published in the fifties and sixties hold a special attraction for me, more so if it is a crime fiction title. More than what it inside it is the cover that gets me. Last Sunday at Abids I came across a slim book in a heap with an attractive cover. I picked it up and the title on the cover was ‘Murder Me for Nickels’ by Peter Rabe. It was published in May, 1960 by Gold Medal Books in USA. I got it for just twenty rupees. This was the only title in last Sunday’s haul.