Last
week there was another minor flood of books. I bought six books all in a matter
of a few days. On Saturday, a holiday being a second Saturday I dropped in at the
Unique bookstore in Lakdikapul-Khairatabad road. On an earlier visit I had
spotted a book that I could not buy for some reason. On Saturday I noticed it
was still available on the shelf. It was a nice copy of ‘Seven Sacred Rivers’
by Bill Aitken, a book I had read a long time ago and lost somewhere. I think
it was more than twenty years since I last read it and felt some kind of
attachment to the title. I wanted to read it again so I picked it up.
The
next day, Sunday that is, I was at Abids as usual. I was glad to find that the
copy of ‘Mango Coloured Fish’ by Kavery Nambisan I had mulled about buying for
about three weeks was there with the same seller. I got it for just fifty
rupees. But I do not know when I would take it out to read, maybe sometime next
year.
A long time ago, almost thirty years ago, I decided to become a writer and started jotting down ideas, random quotes and also titles of books I came across in books I read. Luckily for me I managed to hold on to these notebooks though I did not write much except a few short pieces. In one of those notebooks I had noted down the title ‘People Who Say Goodbye’ by P.Y. Betts. I remember the name of the author because I go through those notebooks now and then. Anyway, when I saw a copy of People Who Say Goodbye’ by P.Y. Betts I got the shock of my life. I did not expect to find it and therefore was excited that I found a book whose title I had noted down just out of curiosity and not with the intention of reading it. It was a beautiful, almost new copy that I got for a hundred rupees. Afterwards in the evening when I took out the notebook I saw that I had read about ‘People Who Say Goodbye’ by P.Y. Betts.in Dirk Bogarde’s ‘For the Time Being’ that was a sort of memoir. It was sometime in 2003 that I had read ‘For the Time Being’ and I still have the copy with me.
At a
seller in Chikkadpally I found a copy of ‘French Lessons in Africa’ by Peter
Biddlecombe. Earlier I had seen another title by the same author- that I did
not think much of and hence did not buy. But when I read the word ‘Africa,’ one
of my favourite parts of the world, and saw that it was a travel book I
immediately bought it.
A
bookseller I bought books from online led me to two WhatsApp groups of
bookseller who conduct online sales and auctions of books. I joined and within
days took part in an auction. I bid hard for a copy of ‘The Great Railway
Bazaar’ by Paul Theroux that had a great cover and that seemed a first edition.
I have a couple of copies of this title but not the one in the auction. I had
to pay a steep amount to get this book for which many bibliophiles were bidding
but in the end I got it.
In
the same auction was a nice copy of ‘Portrait of India’ by Ved Mehta. It was a
hard copy. Again I wanted it badly so I bid and outbid all of them to get it.
Quite a drain on the wallet but I had two great titles after the auction ended.
It was the first ever auction I took part in and I was quite excited that I got
such good books.
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