The Sunday Haul (on 26/07/2020)

Due to the fear of the Corona virus not many people are coming to Abids to look for books on the pavements on Sundays. But, barring a couple most of the sellers are putting up their books on sale. They have also given up being hopeful of making a good deal of the few books they are able to sell to those crazy enough to visit Abids for their books. I am one of those crazy ones visiting Abids in these times when the threat of the Corona virus hangs above everyone’s heads. The surprising thing is that I am able to find wonderful titles every time I go there. Since the past few months I have been able to find gems I couldn’t find anywhere else. Last Sunday too I found seven titles all of them equally good.

The first find was a title that I had seen several copies a few years back but hadn’t the sense to pick it up. So this time when I saw a nice copy of ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ by Tea Obreht I took it.

Then in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees each, from which I had picked up nearly half a dozen titles in the past few Sundays, and which seems to be never growing smaller, I found a copy of ‘Cleopatra’s Sister’ by Penelope Lively.

In the same pile I also found a nice copy of ‘Difficult Daughters’ by Manju Kapur. Though I had come across this title many times I hadn’t bought it because of the price quoted by the sellers. Now that it was available for just fifty rupees I thought I’d buy it and so I did.

There are a couple of sellers in Abids for whom books are just commodities and treat them as such. They quote their prices after taking a look at the buyer. For some reason though I have bought a lot of books from them they act as if they are seeing me for the first time. They quote outrageous prices and usually I throw down the book in annoyance and walk away without buying the book no matter how much they try to sell it to me. Last Sunday I found three good titles with them. The seller quoted an outrageous price that I wasn’t willing to pay. Then he started pleading, haggling, and ultimately came down to what I wanted to pay. Even that was more than what the books were worth. I did not want to bargain too hard and ended up buying the three books.

The first one was a copy of ‘The Men Who Ruled India, Vol. I The Founders’ by Philip Woodruff. I bought it for two reasons. First was the subject and second reason was that it was a Jonathan Cape Paperback and published in 1963, a year before I was born. It had a wonderful cover with a painting of Indian Royalty and British people. There was no mention of it anywhere inside and I wonder whose painting it was.

The second book was a hardcover title without a jacket. It was kept open so that the inside title page would be visible and this was how I spotted ‘I Would Have Saved Them If I Could’ by Leonard Michaels. I hadn’t heard of Leonard Michaels and the reason I bought it was the name Farrar, Strauss and Giroux on the bottom of the title page. Later I learnt that Michaels was a short story writer.

The third title that I almost missed and found only at the last moment was a Penguin title called ‘a journey with elsa cloud’ by Leila Hadley .This was another travel memoir set in India and that was enough to make me buy it. I paid a little more than three hundred books for these three titles.

The last title I found was another travel/reportage title and I found it at Chikkadpally. It was a copy of ‘Balkan Ghosts’ by Robert D. Kaplan and looked like it was another good book by an author I hadn’t heard before. The few paragraphs I read before I bought it sounded something similar to Ryszard Kapuscinski’s writing. I have to read the entire book to find out how good it is.

The Sunday Haul (on 19.07.2020)

Last Sunday it wasn’t a normal one at Abids because nearly a quarter of the second hand book sellers hadn’t set shop. One of the sellers who did not set up his books but came to Abids told me that there weren’t enough buyers to make it worthwhile. I felt a bit disappointed because I had seen a title he had that I wanted to pick up but I would have to wait until next Sunday for it. That is, if he sets shop. But no matter that there were fewer sellers than usual I managed to land in a good haul of eight titles.

I have a weakness for crime fiction of the 60’s and 70’s and that’s the reason why I picked up three titles from a seller who seem to be new to Abids. The covers of these titles are of a different style. I found a copy of ’13 French Street’ by Gil Brewer, someone I have never heard before.

It was the same with GG Fickling. I found a copy of his ‘Honey in the Flesh’ by G.G. Fickling

Then there was this copy of ‘The Smugglers’ by Paul Petersen that I simply couldn’t resist. I got all these three books for just eighty rupees.

A long time back I had missed picking up a title that I should have taken. It was too good to resist and a Penguin to boot. But somehow I had seen that title too many times and thought I’d pick it up when there was nothing else. The title simply disappeared and coincidentally only the other day I was thinking of ‘Meatless Days’ by Sara Suleri which was the title I had missed buying in the past. Suddenly there was this wonderful copy of the same book on a bookshelf and I grabbed it. I got it for hundred rupees.

In all the thirty plus years of looking for good titles in the Sunday book market of Abids and also at other second hand bookstores in Hyderabad and elsewhere I never came across a title by Susan Sontag. I was desperate to find something even if it was a small book. Last Sunday I found exactly that. I found a small book- a Penguin Modern, ‘Notes on Camp’ by Susan Sontag that had just two essays- Notes on ‘Camp’ and, One Culture and the New Sensibility. I felt glad finding this little gem that I got for fifty rupees only.

In the year Doris Lessing won the Nobel I found a copy of her ‘The Golden Notebook’ and kept it aside to be read some time in the future when I had the time to read the hundreds of pages of this book. But unfortunately I gave it away, a foolish thing to do, yes, thinking I could never read it. That was before I read other Doris Lessing titles. Last Sunday I found a nice copy of ‘The Golden Notebook’ by Doris Lessing and picked it up.

The other Sunday I had seen a nice copy of ‘The War Poems’ by Siegfried Sassoon that I did not pick up because I had bought too many books by then. I wasn’t in a mood to pick up anything and left it behind praying no one would buy it until the following Sunday. But the next Sunday when I went I couldn’t find and saw the copy ‘Misery’ by Stephen King I had seen along with ‘The War Poems’ and which I picked up. But I knew that ‘The War Poems’ would turn up again and turn up again it did last Sunday. It was a beautiful faber & faber paperback that I bought for a hundred rupees.

With the same seller where I bought ‘The War Poems’ I saw a copy of ‘The Blindness of Insight’ by Dilip M.Menon, a book of essays on caste in modern India. The title is published by Navayana, and I got it for fifty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 12-07-2020)

It was another Sunday at Abids scrounging for good titles among the many spread out on the pavements. I found ten books but I am writing about only four of them as the others are titles I already have or are books for kids I picked up to give away.

In the lane where I park my two wheeler a seller had a nice copy of ‘Social Change in Modern India’ by M.N. Srinivas that I had been seeing since the past four Sundays. Of late I have become interested in knowing more about such topics and thought it would be useful knowledge to gain. Finally I decided to pick it up since I know that it is a good book.

Sometime ago there were piles of books being sold for only ten rupees at Abids. Nowadays the minimum rate is twenty rupees. But last Sunday I saw another ten rupees pile. Going through it I found a copy of ‘The Long Divorce’ by Edmund Crispin. I had only heard of Edmund Crispin but have never found anything by him or read any book of his. This book looked promising and on a hunch I bought it.

In another pile I saw a copy of ‘Beyond Illusion’ by Duong Thu Huong. A couple of weeks ago I had picked up a Thai novel, a collection of short stories by a Chinese author, and earlier I had bought and also read a book by a Vietnamese writer about the war. Reading these books sparked a desire to read more literature from the South East Asian countries. ‘Beyond Illusion’ is published by Picador and that alone was confirmation that it was a good book so I bought it without much hesitation.

The previous Sunday I had seen two books that I promised myself to buy the following Sunday i.e., last Sunday. Out of those two books only ‘Misery’ by Stephen King was in the pile where I had last seen it. It was a hardcover copy and published in 1987 by Guild Publishing and on the back there’s an interesting picture of Stephen King taken by Andrew Unangst. I bought the book for the picture alone.

I was disappointed not to find the other title- War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon. I couldn’t spot it. Somebody must have picked it up or it might turn up next Sunday. I have to wait until then. I will find it if I am lucky otherwise I will think I had made a stupid decision not to have picked it up as soon as I saw it.

The Sunday Haul (on 05.07.2020)

All the books I had seen the previous Sunday at Abids and that I planned to buy this Sunday were gone, not surprisingly. Only the Brit Bennett title as well as the Herta Mueller title were on the shelf but I had to skip buying them because I had spotted other titles that seemed more interesting. The first book I bought was a copy of ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton with a cover that I did not have on the two copies I had picked up long back. I loved the cover on this copy and bought it for fifty rupees only.

The second title was one by someone I had read about only recently. I saw a nice copy, almost new, of ‘Oranges are Not the Only Fruit’ by Jeanette Winterson and I immediately knew I had to buy it. So in it went into the haul. But I had to pay a hundred rupees for it.

Though I read only his columns I have not read any book by Hanif Kureshi so far for the simple reason that I have not come across any of them. So when I saw a hardcover copy of ‘My Ear at His Heart’ by Hanif Kureshi, a memoir, I grabbed it without a second thought.

A couple of years ago I discovered James Salter after reading about him in The Hindu. I was on the lookout for ‘Burning the Days’ but instead I had found a copy of ‘A Sport and A Pastime’ with a tattered cover. It was a great find I thought until I came across a copy of ‘Burning the Days’ itself sometime later. After reading these books I decided to find and read everything Salter had written. Last Sunday I spotted another copy of ‘A Sport and A Pastime’ on top of one of several piles of children’s books haphazardly arranged on a wooden plank on the pavement near Bata in Abids. It had a different cover but I nearly jumped when I saw it. I got it for fifty rupee only. This copy was a different edition but at least the cover was in a good condition. The bonus was that there was a wonderful picture of James Salter on the back.

But there were a couple of titles I missed picking up. There was a hardcover copy of ‘Misery’ by Stephen King with an interesting photograph of the author on the back of the cover that I should have picked up but did not. Next Sunday I am going to pick it up along with a beautiful copy of ‘War Poems’ by Siegfried Sassoon that I saw with the same seller.

The Sunday Haul (on 28-06-2020)

Another Sunday amidst the semi-lockdown and yet another haul at the Abids Sunday second hand book market in Hyderabad. Actually I had seen a lot of books that I ought to have bought. I saw a nice hard cover copy of ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan, a copy of a Brit Bennett title, a copy of ‘Jasmine’ by Bharati Mukherjee, and also a title by Herta Mueller that I somehow did not buy. But I have marked them to be picked up next Sunday.

Last Sunday the first title I picked up was one I had seen earlier but did not buy. The second time I saw it I took it. It was a nice copy of ‘A Year by the Sea’ by Joan Anderson. I first read a review of this book a long time back in The Hindu. I think I still have the cutting somewhere in my papers. Anyway, I am glad I bought it because I love reading such kind of books where someone lives alone away from family in a far off place to heal and recover from whatever is troubling them. I got this book for fifty rupees.

Now a days I am heavily into reading about countries and places by journalists and other writers. A few days ago I finished reading ‘The Emperor and the Shah of Shahs’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski. Even before I could finish it I found a copy of ‘All the Wrong Places’ by James Fenton. It was a Penguin title and I felt it could be a good read and hence picked it up.

The other Sunday I had seen a copy of ‘On the Banks of the Mayyazhi’ by M. Mukundan in Chikkadpalli with one of the sellers. But I did not buy it since I had bought almost half a dozen books and did not wish to add to the haul. I told myself that I would pick it up the following Sunday. At first I could not find this title with the seller with whom I had seen it. I was a bit disappointed thinking it got sold and the seller too, not a bright guy, said it was gone. But I was surprised when I saw it with another seller. I grabbed it right away. But I did not find the issue of Indian Literature I had also seen the previous Sunday. I had noticed that it had a short story by Pudumaipithan who writes fantastic stories. I have a feeling that I might find it next Sunday.