The Sunday Haul (on 20/09/2020)

While I’ve found a copy or two of Dashiell Hammett’s ‘The Glass Key,’ ‘The High Window,’ ‘The Big Knockover,’ ‘The Dain Curse,’ ‘Woman in the Dark,’ ‘The Continental Op,’  and ‘Red Harvest’ I have almost half a dozen copies of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ that I found over the years. I just noticed that I have two copies of ‘The Continental Op’ and only one copy of the rest of the titles I have listed above. Last Sunday I found my second copy of ‘Red Harvest’ by Dashiell Hammett.

The weather hadn’t been too good all last week with intermittent rain and cloudy skies. On Sundayvtoo the sky was cloudy but it did not rain when I reached Abids. The forecast was for rain, and in fact I got a notification to expect rain at one in the afternoon. I wanted to make a quick round of all the sellers, pick up anything I found interesting and leave before it began to rain. But unfortunately or fortunately I did not see anything interesting and also did not find any of the titles I had planned to buy that I had failed to buy in the previous Sundays.

On the way back home I stopped at the first seller at Chikkadpally and hit a gold mine. I found a copy of ‘The Interpreters’ by Wole Soyinka that I felt I already have. I was not sure but I did not want to miss buying it so I picked it up. Then I saw the copy of ‘Red Harvest’ y Dashiell Hammett. The cover made me feel that I did not have this title so I bought it too. Later when I went home and checked I realized I already have these two titles though the copy of ‘Red Harvest’ had a different cover than the one on the first copy I had bought long back.

A Midweek Haul (on 16/09/2020)

Last Thursday I had to go to the office to catch up on some important paperwork. Since there are no fixed timings I planned to finish my quickly and leave early about an hour or so after lunch. I planned to drop in at the second book sale near the Jubilee Hills police station. I had been there earlier and had picked up a couple of books. I wanted to check out if there was anything else I could buy. So after lunch and some dawdling I left at four and stopped at the sale. It was cloudy and looked like it would rain hence I decided to take a quick look and leave.

In a section that said three books for hundred rupees I hit a gold mine. I found a copy of ‘Double Indemnity’ by James M. Cain. It was almost brand new. I had earlier bought a copy of ‘Mildred Pierce’ and also a tattered copy of ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ a long time back at Abids. This was my third James M. Cain title. I was glad I found it and in fact I finished reading it yesterday. It is less than a hundred and thirty five pages and took me barely two hours to finish it.

Then I spotted a title that my heart jump. It was there, innocuous, on top of a pile of books laid around the perimeter of the table with other titles kept spine up. It was a beautiful copy of ‘All That Is’ by James Salter. I was excited as I leafed through the pages to find that all were intact and no page was missing. It was my fourth James Salter title after ‘A Sport and A Pastime’, ‘Burning the Days’ and ‘Light Years’ that was my most recent James Salter find. I was glad I had decided to stop to look at the books or else I would have missed finding this wonderful title. In fact I was getting the book for just a little over thirty rupees!

The next find in that pile was a copy of ‘The Quiet American’ by Graham Greene that I picked up though I already own a couple of copies of this title. I love everything by Graham Greene and buy all his works whenever I find them.

After I finished I realized I had spent more than an hour looking at the books. There were other titles I wanted to buy but I decided not to. I thought I would come some other time to pick them up. I realized that it had started to rain so I waited. Then I went around the store once again and spotted another title I immediately wanted to buy. It was a nice copy of ‘When a Crocodile Eats the Sun’ by Peter Godwin, a memoir set in Zimbabwe. It was for a hundred rupees but I bought it since I love memoirs, and anything even remotely connected to Africa.

I was terribly pleased about this unexpected haul and in that mood I ventured out though it was drizzling. I had put all the four books in a plastic cover that I put under the seat of my two wheeler. I thought it would be safe from the rain. Then I put my notebook, other papers, and a book I was currently reading in another plastic cover and put it in my bag. I forgot to cover the bag itself in another plastic hood that I usually carry in the bag. After I travelled some distance it began to rain very heavily. I stopped under the metro line that provided some cover. It was a heavy downpour and after waiting for some time I realized the rain wouldn’t stop. I did not want to wait until it was dark so I decided to go one despite the rain. I put on my rain coat and went into the rain. It was quite dangerous riding in the heavy rain, on the roads waterlogged. Though the traffic moved slowly there was no traffic jam. An hour later I was home totally drenched. When I took out the books my heart sank. Some of the books had got wet. I was very upset. I felt very guilty.  I had not taken enough care to protect the books. Many pages in ‘When a Crocodile Eats the Sun’ were wet. I had tears in my eyes after I saw the damage to the books. The only saving grace was that there was no damage to the James Salter book and also my notebook. My papers had some damage and also another book had moisture at the spine area.

After some time I had an idea. I took out the iron and ran it over the wet pages, page by page. It worked to some extent. The moisture dried up and the pages became dry and stiff. They all looked normal. I was able to prevent further damage but the books did not have the same shape. They looked puffed up. I felt bad but at least the pages were saved from further damage. This experience was a lesson. I decided I would do everything to prevent such a thing happening again. I will never let it repeat.

The Sunday Haul (on 13/09/2020)

 

It had rained a bit on Saturday and I was apprehensive about the weather on Sunday. The forecast said it would rain but though it was cloudy in the morning and drizzled for a brief period it didn’t rain when I started out for Abids. It did not rain as long as I was at Abids and managed to pick up three titles. But it began to rain when I was on half the way to home. I managed to find three titles.

Since a couple of Sundays I had been seeing a copy of ‘My Story’ by Kamala Das with a seller but thinking I had a copy of it I did not buy it. I couldn’t recollect buying it and couldn’t also locate the copy and decided I did not have it and so last Sunday when I found the copy of ‘My Story’ by Kamala Das I bought it. It is her autobiography, and quite candid.

Currently I am reading ‘Selected Essays’ by Graham Greene which has several wonderful and very perceptive essays on some writers and their works. I had read a series of essays on Henry James and was developed sufficient interest in his works that I decided to read at least one book by him. Last Sunday at Abids I came across a nice copy of ‘The Ambassadors’ by Henry James and bought it for just forty rupees. Somewhere else I saw a collection of his short stories but did not buy it.

My last find was a book by a diplomat- ‘Where My Caravan Has Rested’ by PL Bhandari. The writing looked quite good and not of that boastful variety that retired bureaucrats and diplomats usually adopt while writing about their time in the service. PL Bhandari seems to have travelled to quite a large number of countries as part of his job but the book isn’t very lengthy. I got it cheap for just twenty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 06-09-2020)

 

It was yet another bright and sunny morning last Sunday here in Hyderabad. I was at Abids eager to take home another haul of wonderful titles that I was yet to find. I had to also look for the titles I had missed buying the previous Sunday. Though I did not find all the title I had not bought earlier I managed to take home a haul of a record fourteen books last Sunday. The large haul filled my heart with a strange joy as I went home.

A long time back I had found a copy of ‘Paraja’ by Gopinath Mohanty. It was a tome running into hundreds of pages but I picked it up though I had not heard of the author before. However, I haven’t read ‘Paraja’ yet but when I saw ‘The Bed of Arrows and Other Stories’ by the same author- Gopinath Mohanty last Sunday at Abids I picked it up. It was a Sahitya Akademi publication and was a hardcover copy with the jacket. The introduction was by Sitakanta Mahapatra, an Odia poet I read. I got it for sixty rupees.

The same seller had another book titled ‘Vijay Tendulkar’ that I had seen the previous Sunday but hadn’t bought. I picked up the book and flipped the pages. There were a few essays but Vijay Tendulkar himself and articles on him by others. Vijay Tendulkar is the playwright of ‘Ghasiram Kotwal’ an acclaimed play so I decided to buy the book. This book too I got for sixty rupees.

Further down the road was the seller where I had seen a title I had not bough the previous Sunday. Luckily it was there and I picked up ‘The Gentleman in the Parlour’ by Somerset Maugham. I have a copy of it already but the cover is damaged so I bought this copy last Sunday since it had a good and undamaged cover. I got it for forty rupees.

There are many instances when I have picked up a book purely on a hunch. It was either the cover, the title, or the publisher that made me buy the book. I usually take a good look at all the books that have been made into movies. Last Sunday I came across one such title-‘A Fine Madness’ by Eliott Baker in a pile of books selling for twenty rupees only. On the back cover it said it was made into a movie starring Sean Connery and Joanne Woodward.

A couple of years back I had seen a copy of ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter’ by Mario Vargas Llosa I stupidly did not buy it. I do not understand why I did not buy it though I knew Llosa was a fantastic writer and I should buy that book. Anyway, last Sunday I chanced upon a nice copy of ‘In Praise of the Step Mother’ by Mario Vargas Llosa in the same pile of books for twenty rupees.

There’s a seller in Abids to whom I offload all the books I’ve read and do not want to keep. In turn he keeps aside some titles that he’s got for me to take a look before he puts them on the pavement. Last Sunday he took out some titles from his sack and out of those I chose the following ones:

‘Notes from a Big Country’ by Bill Bryson. I realized I haven’t read this book and all these years I had thought it was another title of his ‘Lost Continent.’

‘Northanger Abbey’ by Jane Austen. I want to begin reading the classics with this title maybe.

‘The Heart of the Matter’ by Graham Greene. I already have a couple of copies of this title but bought it nevertheless.

‘Men at War’ edited by Ernest Hemingway. I haven’t heard about this book so I took it.

‘The Year of the Young Rebels’ by Stephen Spender. I bought it for the striking red cover and the title, apart from the fact that the author is Stephen Spender whose poetry I’ve been reading since a long time.

‘A Passage to India’ by EM Forster. This too I haven’t read so far. I have been meaning to read it but never found a good copy so I took it.

‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ by Alain de Botton. As one gets older it is to philosophy one turns to. I am 57, just the age to start reading philosophy, and besides I have always been fascinated by philosophy though it takes a pretty long time for me to grasp what is being said.

On the way home from Abids with a dozen titles in the haul and feeling smug I stopped at Chikkadpally to check out the wares of a seller. I had been looking high and low for a Naguib Mahfouz title since long. Only the other day I was reading ‘The Pillars of Hercules’ by Paul Theroux in which he writes about meeting Mahfouz just a few days after he had been stabbed. After reading it I was keen to find a title by Naguib Mahfouz, and last Sunday I finally spotted a copy of ‘Autumn Quail’ by Naguib Mahfouz. I was pretty thrilled to find that it was a novel about a young, corrupt bureaucrat which I am, a bureaucrat but not young or corrupt!

At another seller who sets up shop at a corner of the RTC X Roads I spotted a nice copy of ‘Lantern Slides’ by Edna O’Brien. It is a collection of twelve short stories by a master storyteller. I am very glad I stopped though I already had thirteen books in my bag. I would have missed this wonderful book if I had sped past without taking a look.

This is another record haul. I spent a total of five hundred and eighty rupees for these fourteen books which means roughly forty rupees per book.

The Sunday Haul (on 30-08-2020)

The Sunday before the last Sunday I had seen several interesting titles that I did not buy since I had bought enough. Last Sunday I planned to look for them and buy them if available. However I couldn’t find a single title that I had seen and either they had all been bought or they might not have made it to the pile. I wasn’t really heartbroken but disappointed. Sometimes I find them the following Sunday so I am not yet mourning for the loss of these titles one of which was a nice copy of ‘The Gentleman in the Parlour’ by Somerset Maugham. I already own a copy but the cover is a bit damaged. The copy I saw the other Sunday had a nice cover. I should have bought it. 

A few minutes after I had parked my two wheeler I spotted the first and only find in the Sunday Haul. I had been looking for this title since a long time and felt excited when at last I found it last Sunday. It was a beautiful copy of ‘From Heaven Lake’ by Vikram Seth. This was written after ‘A Suitable Boy’ I read somewhere inside. ‘From Heaven Lake’ is an account of Vikram Seth’s journey by foot from China to Delhi via Tibet sometime in the 1980’s when he was studying in China.  I was very pleased to find this title since on Friday I had found another title on Tibet at a second hand bookstore. I did not mind paying more than a hundred rupees for it.

On Friday last I had been to the office to catch up on some necessary paperwork, and to attend a meeting. On the way back home I stopped at a second hand bookstore in Khairatabad, the Unique Books store to see if there was anything interesting to pick up. The store has a nice collection and I like to drop in there at least once a month. I saw a copy of ‘Seven Sacred Rivers’ by Bill Aitken that I wanted to buy but when I saw a copy of ‘Tibet, Tibet’ by Patrick French I put it aside and bought Patrick French’s book. I want to read both these books one after the other to know what they thought of the places they went to and the people they met.