The Sunday Haul (on 20-01-2019)

The Sunday before last I was in Chennai where I managed a decent haul of ten titles that did not seem to have prevented me from going to Abids last Sunday. The weather in Chennai (or anywhere else, for that matter) is nothing like the beautiful weather in Hyderabad, I once again realized. It was sunny, warm and bright last Sunday as I went around the book bazaar in Abids picking up four wonderful titles.

The first title I found was a nice copy of ‘Husband of a Fanatic’ by Amitava Kumar, a Penguin title published in 2004. I had read several essays by Amitava Kumar but none of his books so finding this book was a stroke of luck. I got this copy for eighty rupees.

The next find was a beautiful copy of ‘Nine Faces of Kenya’ by Elspeth Huxley that runs into nearly four hundred and fifty pages. I hesitated long before finally deciding to buy it because in no other single book would I find so much written about by Kenya by so many writers. It is in fact a treasure trove of writing about Kenya. After I saw the contents page and also read the introduction I realized that the anthology is divided into nine parts: Exploration, Travel, Settlers, Wars, Environment, Wildlife, Hunting, Lifestyles, Legend and Poetry being the last of the nine parts hence the ‘Nine Faces’ in the title. I am glad I found this book because I would get to read about another country in Africa that I am somehow drawn to.

I already possess three copies of ‘The Groaning Shelf’ by Pradeep Sebastian which is one of the best books by a bibliophile. Of the three copies I have two are new copies I had bought in bookstores and one is a used copy that I found recently. Somehow I cannot resist buying this wonderful book and so when I saw another nice copy of ‘The Groaning Shelf’ by Pradeep Sebastian with one of the sellers at Abids I bought it. This was the last find at Abids.

The last find of the day was at the RTC Crossroads where a seller has a few hundred books, mostly books for the Civil Services but some of them are novels and such stuff. In a pile with a ‘Rs 20’ board I spotted a copy of ‘The Naked Triangle’ by Balwant Gargi. This was a title I remember fromthe days when I was appearing for the competitive exams and there was a multiple choice question about the author of ‘The Naked Triangle’ and I was able to guess correctly. I found the actual book, nearly two and half decades later.

The Chennai Haul

In the ten years that I’ve been attending the Hyderabad Literary Festival here at Hyderabad it remained the only lit fest I’ve attended. I’ve never been to any other lit fest in the country though I wanted to go to the Jaipur Lit Fest. I never got the chance to go to Jaipur all these years but last week I attended the Lit for Life 2019 literature festival of The Hindu at Chennai. Apart from attending the many sessions and listening to some of the wonderful writers talk about their books and other issues, I also managed to attend the Chennai 42nd Book Fair and also dropped in at a second hand book store and returned from Chennai with a haul of ten books.

The Haul at the Chennai Book Fair

An online friend whom I’ve never met and wanted to meet at Chennai informed me that the Chennai Book Fair was on. It was wonderful news for I had a lot of time on hand on the day I reached Chennai. The venue of the Book Fair, YMCA Grounds at Nandanam, was not too far from where I was staying and after lunch I started for the book fair. I had read that that there were more than 700 stalls of which, I discovered, there were fewer than a dozen stalls stocking books in English. In the handful of stalls selling second-hand books I managed to find three titles.

The first title I found was a copy of ‘Master Georgie’ by Beryl Bainbridge that I got for a hundred and fifty rupees. The next find was a beautiful copy of ‘The Dain Curse’ by Dashiell Hammett that I bought along with a copy of ‘Tar Baby’ by Toni Morrison for two hundred and fifty rupees. It was more than what I would normally pay for second hand books at Abids in Hyderabad but since it was a book fair I did not think twice.

The LFL Haul

At the LFL, I had decided beforehand, that I would buy the latest titles of Amitabha Bagchi (Half the Night is Gone) and Anuradha Roy (All the Lives We Never Lived) and get them signed by the authors. I had read ‘Above Average’ by Bagchi only recently and was quite impressed enough to think of buying his latest title that is getting rave reviews everywhere. Though I have almost all of Anuradha Roy’s titles I haven’t read any till date, though I know they are all outstanding works. I managed to buy these two books and also get them signed. What I had not planned was buying a copy of ‘Virtual Realities’ by Neelam Saran Gour that I bought after hearing her talk.I also got it signed by Neelam Saran Gour who, later next day , was awarded the Hindu Prize for fiction.

On the second day of LFL I had sat in a session in which Abdullah Khan was on the panel and I was impressed by the candour in his replies to the moderator’s questions. After the session I bought his ‘Patna Blues’ but forgot to get it signed. The next day I sought him out and he signed on the book and chatted with me for a while over coffee. The only thing I regret is not getting my copy of ‘Ghachar Ghochar’ that I carried from Hyderabad to Chennai, by Vivek Shanbhag. I had thought he’d be around for some time but apparently he had left soon after his session on the first day itself.
Amitabha Bagchi doesn’t appear anything like the person shown in the photograph on the book. He had a ponytail and a long beard and many people couldn’t recognise him until he was introduced by the moderator.

Another Chennai Haul

I had long been thinking of visiting Chennai’s Moore Market, where I was told, were booksellers who stocked used books. At last I was there last week but since it was festival time the market was closed. But I wasn’t prepared to give up. I had read about Govindaraju’s ‘Rare Books’ in RA Puram which was where I was headed soon after finding that I wouldn’t find a single title in Moore Market. ‘Rare Books’ turned out to be some kind of a garage store with thousands of books stacked haphazardly. There were books, magazines, tattered tomes, and loose papers scattered around. From this mess I managed to extricate three titles. The first find was a hardcover copy of ‘The Gutenberg Elegies’ by Sven Birkerts that was in my ‘must-buy’ list. I had read about this title somewhere and so remembered it.

Two more titles that I bought here were copies of titles that I already possess. One was a nice copy of ‘Writing Down the Bones’ by Natalie Goldberg and the other a copy of ‘The Instant Enemy’ by Ross Macdonald that I also read again in the plane back to Hyderabad. I got these three books for four hundred rupees. I had seen a book by Jai Nimbkar and a hardcover book of Rainer Maria Rilke that I now regret not buying.

The visit to Chennai yielded ten titles and with these my total haul in the first fortnight of the first month of the new year comes to eleven.

The Sunday Haul ( on 06 -01-2019)

The haul at Abids on the first Sunday of the year was just one good title and I am perfectly okay with it. The reason is I had bought 250 books in 2018 and this year I want to keep that tally to something under hundred if I can.

I found a copy of ‘The Haunt’ by A.L. Barker, an author I hadn’t heard about before. But I bought it based on the high praise for Barker in the blurbs on the back and front covers. I don’t know how it would be but I bought it nevertheless. I got it for eighty rupees only. This was the only book I bought at Abids and I am now thinking if it would be a good idea to buy just one title every Sunday at Abids.

This Friday I am at Chennai until the 15th. I came to know that the Chennai Book Fair is going on and will end on the 20th. I am looking forward eagerly to drop and see what I can pick up there.

2018 Books

After adding the five titles that I picked up on the last day of the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair on Christmas Day, the total number of books I picked up last year comes to a perfect 250. I do not think I have bought so many books in the previous years. I guess it is a record. While it makes me happy that I possess so many books it also makes me worried that there’s not enough space for more books in the future unless I begin culling my collection.

While I appear to be ambitious in buying books I am not so in reading them. Last year I have read only 85 books, some of which I am yet to finish reading. Out of these eighty five books listed below are some that I enjoyed reading.

‘Disgrace’ by JM Coetzee
‘Havanas in Camelot’ by William Styron
‘The Story of a Brief Marriage’ by Anuk Arudpragasam
‘I Feel Bad About My Neck’ by Nora Ephron
‘Dreams in a Time of War’ by Ngugi Wa Thiong O
‘The Great Gatsby’ Scott F Fitzgerald
‘Ants Among Elephants’ by Sujatha Gidla
‘Woman in the Dark’ by Dashiell Hammett
‘We Need New Names’ by Noviolet Bulawayo
‘The Forgotten Waltz’ by Anne Enright
‘African Laughter’ by Doris Lessing
‘Through the Narrow Gate’ by Karan Armstrong
‘Home Fires’ by Kamila Shamsie
‘Longing Belonging’ by Bishwanath Ghosh
‘Out on the Rim’ by Ross Thomas
‘The Long March’ by William Styron
‘Among the Believers’ by VS Naipaul
‘A Bend in the River’ by VS Naipaul
‘Above Average’ by Amitabha Bagchi
‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl
‘Sydney’ by Jan Morris
‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ by William Maxwell
‘Goat Days’ by Benyamin
‘Missionary Stew’ by Ross Thomas
‘Republic of Caste’ by Anand Teltumbde
‘Arabian Sands’ by Wilfred Thesiger