The Sunday Haul (on 13-10-2019)

Though the Dasara festival was over the shops were open since Diwali was another two weeks away, and people with lots of money and nothing to do would want to shop. Also there was the marriage season so the regular shops were open last Sunday too. However, apart from a couple of second hand book sellers who had moved to other corners most of them were at their usual places.

I found a title by an author I had read about sometime back- Hanya Yanagihara. I thought I wouldn’t be able to find anything by her and so completely forgot about it. Last Sunday when I saw a copy of ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara at Abids I got a pleasant shock. The second hand book market that comes up at Abids every Sunday is truly a treasure house. The book was more than 700 pages long and I wondered if would be able to read it. But I didn’t hesitate for more than a minute before buying it. The other shock was that I paid only a hundred rupees for it.

Even before the joy of finding ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara had bubbled over I saw another wonderful book. I wasn’t even aware of ‘Figures in a Landscape’ by Paul Theroux so when I saw it with another seller at Abids I felt a thrill of excitement. It was a brand new copy and no wonder the seller asked for a bomb for it. I wasn’t willing to pay so much and so walked away after the seller refused my own offer. However, I couldn’t stop thinking about it as I went around looking at other titles until I finally turned around and picked up the copy of ‘Figures in a Landscape’ by Paul Theroux. Not buying it would have been quite a dumb decision because I read that it contains essays that Theroux has written during the period 2001-2016. There are thirty essays in this title, on subjects ranging from Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, Paul Bowles, Somerset Maugham, including one that immediately caught my eye- My Life as a Reader.

I read this essay right away and looked for authors and titles that I might have also read. There was Edmund Wilson’s ‘Memoirs of Hecate County’, B. Traven (whose ‘The Bridge in the Jungle’ I had found a couple of years ago), Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s ‘The Worst Journey in the World’, and also several titles and authors I haven’t read and that I now want to look for at Abids and elsewhere. It is finding books like these that make me want to come to Abids again and again.

The Sunday Haul (on 06-10-2019)

Last Sunday the festival shopping season was in full swing with shoppers thronging the stores like it was the last Dasara of their lives. There were some people stepping out of their fancy cars, who appeared like they had enough money to buy up every piece of dress, every pair of footwear from a couple of stores. The second hand booksellers, almost all of them, were at their usual places with a couple of them perched on the fringes. Though it had been raining every day without fail, last Sunday it did not rain until I was back home safe in the afternoon. It began to rain the moment I reached home and the downpour continued for a couple of hours. Though I found just one book I found a wonderful title that I began to read while having chai at the Star of India café in Abids.

There’s something about Australian writers I am drawn to. I have a small collection of books by Australian writers, including books about Australia by other writers on my shelves but I always have a feeling that there’s more that I have to read. Only recently I read about ‘The Choke’ by Sophie Laguna that I jotted down in my TBR list. Sometime next month a friend living in Australia is getting me a couple of books by Gerald Murnane that I am eagerly waiting to read. There was ‘Monkey Grip’ by Helen Garner that I cannot forget even after having read it several years ago.

When I saw a copy of ‘How I Feel’ by Brendan Cowell with the close up of a couple in a lip-lock I picked it up to see what was inside. I had not heard of Brendan Cowell before and when I read that he was an Australian actor, writer, and director I took a closer look. The joy of buying the book was spoilt by one of the greediest seller in Abids who thinks that every book he has is worth at least three hundred rupees which is what he asked me for the copy of ‘How I Feel.’ Anyway, I read the first chapter in the café where I have chai, and it turned out to be quite interesting.

The Sunday Haul

The festival season is upon us which means shopping, shopping, shopping for many. This shopping wave displaces the second hand book sellers at Abids because the regular stores do not close on Sundays during this festival season. Luckily, last Sunday though a few stores were open many of the second hand book sellers at Abids were at their usual places. Once again, I was alone and managed to find two books, both which I already had copies of.
Of course, not content with the three books I bought in the middle of the week, on Saturday once again dropped in at a second hand book store and picked up another book. It was a nice copy of ‘Two Faces of Eve’ by Amrita Pritam. I am both ashamed and also embarrassed to say that though I have read numerous articles about Amrita Pritam, especially last month, I haven’t read anything by her all these years. One reason could be that I couldn’t find a single title of Amrita Pritam till last Saturday when I spotted ‘Two Faces of Eve’ that was one of those 70’s editions that I have come to love. I got it for seventy rupees that I thought was far too less.

Anyway, not very long ago I had found a nice hardcover copy of ‘The Other Side of Me’ by Sidney Sheldon. It was a memoir, and it was by a popular writer which was something I simply cannot resist buying. I have so many memoirs by writers that I have a fair idea of what to write in my own memoir were I to become a writer. I am waiting. Though I do not give away some titles so easily there was someone I know who is such a major fan of Sidney Sheldon that every time we meet (which is about once a month) he tells me he has re-read some title or the other by Sidney Sheldon and we’ve been meeting since more than a decade. Last time we met he told me he had read ‘The Other Side of Midnight’ fifteen times. So I thought he was the right person to give ‘The Other Side of Me’ to since he too writes.

After I gave away that copy of ‘The Other Side of Me’ by Sidney Sheldon to my friend once or twice I wondered if had done the right thing because I too had read it and found it to be very absorbing account. But then last Sunday I found another copy of the same title but in a far better condition than the first copy I had found, which, if I remember correctly, had moisture stains on some pages. This memoir is as racy as the novels Sidney Sheldon writes.

The second book that I bought on Sunday was the outcome of a casual exchange I had with a seller. Usually, on spotting me he wishes me and I move on to look at the books he has displayed and move on to the next seller. Last Sunday I happened to ask him how he was and how business was whereupon he asked me to look at a new collection he had on a shelf in a voice that told me business was dull. I wanted him to cheer up and so bought a copy of ‘My Dateless Diary’ by RK Narayan that I had read ages ago. But I had to pay a price, a steep one, for my casual query about the seller’s business. I had to shell out a hundred rupees for it when I could have got a similar copy at a different seller for half the money.