The Sunday Haul (on 22/11/2020)

 

Sometime last week I dropped in at the Unique Bookstore branch in Khairatabad. I had been there earlier too and had managed to find a few good titles. So this time too I expected to find something good.  It did not take me long to spot a thin volume on a shelf. I had seen only the words- ‘Pillai’ ‘Scavenger’s Son’ and ‘Heinemann’ on the spine of the book that lay flat in a pile high up on a shelf. I had it taken down after I realized that if it was published by Heinemann then it ought to be something very good. I thought it could be someone I did not know but I was pleasantly surprised to see the beautiful cover with the author’s name- ‘Scavenger’s Son’ by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. It was a thin volume with not more than 120 pages. I got it for a hundred rupees.

Then came Sunday. As usual I was at Abids after breakfast. I looked for the titles I had missed buying the last week. I was a bit disappointed that the copy of ‘Mango Coloured Fish’ by Kaveri Nambisan was not to be seen. But I saw the copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice’ by James M.Cain with the back cover missing. I did not feel like buying it since I already own a copy though a tattered one. Before I could change my mind and buy a second copy I walked away. 

I couldn’t find anything interesting with the next couple of sellers. Then I happened to spot ‘Fire on the Mountain’ by Anita Desai with a lovely cover. It was a copy from a college library and there was a sticker on the cover that I later removed. I got this slim book for just fifty rupees. This is the next book I want to read. Only … pages long it will be a quick read that I can do in a day. Sometime during the week I plan to take a couple of days’ leave. There’s heavy rain coming up due to a cyclone and I don’t want to travel to office in that weather. I have leaves left over that I want to use now.

The Sunday Haul (on 15/11/2020)

 

Last Sunday was the first one after the Diwali festival and all the regular shops were closed which meant that the second hand book sellers at Abids were at their usual places. As usual I went around but did not pick up some good titles I should have bought. For example I saw an old copy of ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’ by James M.Cain that had the back cover missing but otherwise was in better shape than the copy I had found many years ago. But I did not buy it for some reason. I also missed buying the copy of ‘Mango Coloured Fish’ by Kaveri Nambisan that was still there in the same pile I had seen it the other Sunday. Maybe next week I will pick it up.

However I did buy a book by an author I had always hoped to find. I found a nice copy of ‘Post Office’ by Charles Bukowski.  I have read a lot about Bukowski but had never found anything by him at Abids or any of the second hand book stores I frequent. Finding ‘Post Office’ was a lucky thing for me and the icing on the cake was that I got the book for just fifty rupees.

Something was missing, I thought, while reading travel books. I couldn’t place my finger on it but last week when I was reading Tim Butcher’s ‘Chasing the Devil’ in which he traces the same route that Graham Greene took in ‘Journey Without Maps’, I realized that I did not know where Sierra Leone was. Then I knew I had to get an atlas. It had always been in my mind to buy either a good atlas or a globe but somehow I couldn’t find them. But last Sunday I spotted a large sized hardcover copy of ‘Bartholomew New International Atlas’ and after flipping through a few pages bought it. Every night before going to sleep I am trying to look at the map of at least one country carefully. I realize how little I know about the countries of the world, especially African countries.

The Sunday Haul (08-11-2020)

Since it was festival time with Diwali less than a week away the second hand booksellers at Abids in Hyderabad were not at their usual places before the regular stores which kept their doors open for Diwali shoppers. Many of them were at different places and for the regular shoppers it meant searching for them. I was there before noon last Sunday at Abids looking for titles to pick up. Somehow all the titles I am missing buying one Sunday seem to be missing the next. Even then I deliberately am not picking up titles that I should have. For example I saw a nice copy of Kavery Nambisan’s ‘Mango Coloured Fish’ that I did not pick up. I hope I can find it next week.

I ended up buying nothing at Abids but at Chikkadpally one of the sellers had a title that I bought. It was an uncorrected proof copy of ‘The American Lover’ by Rose Tremain. It is a collection of thirteen short stories that I bought for a hundred rupees.

The American Lover

Captive

The Jester of Astapovo

Extra Geography

A View of Lake Superior in the Fall

Man in the Water

Juliette Greco's Black Dress

The Housekeeper

Smithy

Blackberry Winter

Lucy and Gaston

The Closing Door

21st-Century Juliet

The most interesting thing finding the book was something I found inside the book. Wedged among the pages was a boarding pass in the name of Andrew McElroy for an Istanbul to Bombay flight of Turkish Airlines on 08 October but the year was not mentioned. It looked about two decades old. 

‘A Random Haul’

A couple of years ago I had found ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield at Abids. I had read it then and reread it just a few weeks ago. In this rereading of the book I came across the fact that Steven Pressfield had written a book called ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ that was also made into a movie. One Sunday sometime last month I found a copy of this book. The most interesting thing about it was that I bought the book for just ten rupees. However I do not remember why I forgot to post about finding this book.

Sometime last month I had dropped in at ‘Akshara Bookstore’ in Jubilee Hills not very far from where I work. It was late afternoon when I went there with the plan to check out the shelves for old books. Quite a few times I had found some really good titles that I got cheap. It is one of the best independent bookstores in Hyderabad and it has been around for more than two and half decades. It has changed quite a few locations and I’ve followed the store all through because it stocks the very best titles.

This visit too I checked out the shelf where some old titles are kept and spotted a slim book with the title ‘borneo and the poet’ by Redmond o’hanlon on the spine. It was a Penguin 70s edition and I was filled with excitement holding the book. A long time back I had managed to get a copy of ‘Travel Writing’ by Don George that my brother in the US bought for me. In it I found a list of Travel Classics by US writers and in that list was ‘In Heart of Borneo’ by Redmond O’hanlon that was one of the few titles in that list I could not find so far. Also in the list were twenty other titles out of which I managed to find more than ten titles over the years. However it was not the same book but this small book was an extract from that book. Another interesting thing was that the poet mentioned in the title was James Fenton whose ‘All the Wrong Places’ I had found a couple of months ago. Of course I read ‘borneo and the poet’ right away after getting home. I paid just thirty rupees for this title.

I am so besotted by Africa that I will not miss anything about Africa especially travelogues. I have an impressive list of such titles like ‘Dark Star Safari’ by Paul Theroux, ‘The Africans’ by David Lamb, ‘The Emperor of Emperors’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski, to name a few.

 On Tuesday I dropped in at the Best Books store in Abids to check out the books and also because I hadn’t found any title at Abids on Sunday. I saw a copy of ‘Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa’s Fighting Spirit’ by Tim Butcher on the shelf and checked out the blurbs. It seemed like a good book going by what the other writers said about it. However, Tim Butcher’s other title ‘Blood River’ seemed a better book but ‘Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa’s Fighting Spirit’ was the title I found so I decided to buy it. I got it for almost three hundred rupees.