The Sunday (on 25-07-2021) and an Online Haul

    One of the few genre of books I am fond of reading is spy fiction, and also crime fiction especially if they are well written and the authors are famous names like le Carre, Len Deighton, Ross MacDonald and such writers. I recently finished reading ‘A Swell Looking Babe’ by Jim Thompson and was looking out for more such titles when I saw a copy of ‘Old Flames’ by John Lawton, a name I had not heard previously. What attracted me to it was first that it was a Penguin title and secondly the blurbs comparing John Lawton to le Carre, a writer I like very much.

The Online Haul

    A couple of years ago I had come across a copy of ‘Detours’ by Salil Tripathi at a seller in Chikkadpally. It was a hardcover book and the seller asked for what I thought was a very high price. I wasn’t willing to pay that much and so undecided I left hoping I would be able to buy it the next Sunday. But next Sunday much to my disappointment I couldn’t find it. The seller told me someone had bought it last Sunday itself that made me terribly annoyed with myself for not having the sense to buy a good book when I saw it. However, on one the WA groups of an online seller of secondhand books I happened to spot this title and I quickly claimed it before anyone could. Luckily for me no one wanted it so I got it. ‘Detours’ are a collection of Salil Tripathi’s essays about his travels all over the world. It was exactly the sort of book I was looking for, a travel book by an Indian author. I have already started reading it and finished the first two essays. In the essay about his time in Indonesia I read about Promodeya Ananta Toer whose one title of a trilogy I had found some time back. Another place was Toer was mentioned was in Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens’ memoir.

 

    I had come across the name Vikram Paralkar somewhere very recently but did not know it was the name of a writer. When I saw a copy of ‘Wounds of the Dead’ by Vikram Paralkar in the same WA group I decided I would claim it. Once again no one seemed to want it so I got this title too. After I received the book this Monday I flipped through the book and found that the author was a medical doctor. This too was a hardcover book a little over 200 pages long that I can finish in a couple of days but when I would find the time to read it I do not know.

The Sunday Haul (on 18-07-2021)

 It is the rainy season over here with the monsoon very active bringing in rain almost every day. However, it did not rain in the morning on Sunday enabling me to go to Abids to look for books in the second hand book bazaar. I returned home with two good titles and luck was on my side since it began to rain shortly after I came back.

                 I have little doubt about what a treasure trove the Abids second hand book bazaar is since I’ve found too many good titles here over the years. It is also incredible how one finds good titles so cheap that one cannot believe it. Last Sunday I found one such title. I already have a copy of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s ‘In Other Rooms, Other Wonders’ that I had found almost a decade ago in 2012. It is a collection of some wonderful short stories that I had bought for sixty rupees. But the copy I saw at Abids last Sunday was only ten rupees. It was in a good condition and I did not have the heart to leave it behind so I picked it up. This was the only book I found at Abids and the second book I found at another place. 

At a seller in Chikkadpally I found a copy of ‘Skippy Dies’ by Paul Murray. I vaguely remember having come across the title mentioned somewhere and moreover it was a Penguin so it roused my interest enough to buy it. I bought the book for hundred rupees. 

An Online Haul

It rained almost all day in Hyderabad last Sunday. It started around the time I usually leave for Abids after breakfast. I waited hoping it would stop but it went on and on coming down heavily. By the time it stopped it was sometime late in the afternoon and I couldn’t go to Abids to look for books as I had other things to do. I was disappointed about missing the visit to Abids but it lasted less than a day since on Monday I received a couple of books I had bought from a WA group of a second hand book seller.

Almost thirty years ago when I was just starting out to buy books at Abids I came across a thick book that I bought though I neither knew the author nor the title but felt that the book was good. It was a copy of ‘Danube’ by Claudio Magris that I am embarrassed to confess is still somewhere on my shelves unread. I had come across another title by Magris in the WA sale- ‘Microcosms’- that I immediately claimed before anyone could. It is a collection of essays, nine of them, translated from the Italian by Iain Halliday.

The other book was also by another Italian writer- Italo Svevo. I had bought ‘Confessions of Zeno’ by Italo Svevo a couple of years ago recognising the name I had read in a collection of essays by J.M.Coetzee. The copy I had received last Monday was ‘A Perfect Hoax’ which was a slim book.

The Sunday Haul (on 04-07-2021)

 

What I love about the second hand book market in Abids in my city of Hyderabad is that it is a virtual treasure trove from which I’ve picked up hundreds of wonderful titles, but also that one would find great books being sold for as little as ten rupees which is less than what you’d pay for a cup of chai here. There are a few sellers who have heaps of books selling for just ten rupees. In one such heap I spotted a copy of ‘The Oranging of America’ by Max Apple. I was intrigued to see that it was a faber &faber title and so picked it up. It turned out to be a collection of short stories by an author I had not heard of before but looked quite promising so I picked it up.

I can never get enough of Africa and books about Africa. I am always on the look out for books set in or about Africa and if I don’t find any new titles I reread books on Africa that I already have. Only last week I had finished reading ‘The Healing Land’ by Rupert Isaacson that is about the Kalahari and I was wondering what to read next when I spotted ‘Swahili for the Broken-Hearted’ by Peter Moore on a makeshift bookshelf of a seller at Abids. It was just the book I needed so I bought it even though the seller asked for a hundred rupees for it. I have already started reading it and Peter Moore is quite funny. I want to read his other books now if I can find them.

No matter how many books on writing I have on my shelves I can never resist buying books on writing. At Chikkadpally I spotted a nice copy of ‘Writing with Power’ by Peter Elbow with a seller. Expecting that he would ask two hundred rupees for it which I was ready to pay I was pleasantly shocked when he asked just fifty rupees for it. I already have another Peter Elbow title on writing I don’t remember which but this title was a welcome addition to the large collection of books on writing that I have managed to amass over the years.

 

So far I must have picked up more than half a dozen copies of ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’ by Paul Theroux and given them away to friends and others. I had seen another nice copy of the same title at a seller at RTC X Roads the previous Sunday that I did not take though it was for only fifty rupees. Last Sunday however I picked it up when I saw it at the same spot. It was a beautiful copy that appeared almost new.

The Sunday Haul (on 27-06-2021)

 

        It was the usual Sunday morning routine last Sunday here in Hyderabad for me. I was in Abids after a hearty breakfast topped by a cup of hot ginger chai, and feeling good though up there it was quite cloudy. A couple of times I had seen a title but did not buy it because the price appeared too high for me. But last Sunday when I saw a copy of ‘India in Mind’ edited by Pankaj Mishra again I decided to buy it whatever the price. I was quite surprised when the seller said it would be mine for only hundred rupees. It is a collection of extracts on/about Indian from books by well- known authors. There are twenty five of them including some books I have read like ‘The Snow Leopard’ by Peter Matthiessen, ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ by Somerset Maugham, ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’ by Paul Theroux, and also from a few books that I have but haven’t yet read like ‘Hindoo Holiday’ by J.R. Ackerley, ‘Abandon’ by Pico Iyer. There are excerpts from some books by authors I haven’t even heard about. It looks extremely interesting and I plan to read one excerpt a day and finish the book inside of a montth.

            Right now I am in some kind of an ‘Africa Phase’ reading books set in/about Africa, and currently am rereading ‘African Calliope’ by Edward Hoagland for the second time. I was surprised when I read on the back of a book I picked up for a closer book to find that it was set in Africa. This is, perhaps, the first book by an Indian author featuring Africa as the background. It was a copy of ‘The Mountain of the Moon’ by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay translated into English by Jayanta Sengupta

        One of the most interesting titles in my Africa collection is ‘The Africans’ by David Lamb that I had recently finishing reading for the second time. I found it to be extremely well written and I gained a lot of knowledge about the African countries mentioned in the book.  I had no idea that David Lamb had written other books too and one of them was ‘The Arabs’.  I had finished a bit early at Abids and not wanting to go home too soon I decided to check the stock at the ‘Best Books’ store in Abids. I felt my excitement rise when I spotted ‘The Arabs’ by David Lamb on the spine of a book low on a stack of books on a bookshelf. I took it out and realized that it was by the same David Lamb of ‘The Africans’.  However the price was a steep six hundred rupees but somehow the seller gave it to me for half that price saying I was an old customer.

An hour after I returned home it began to rain heavily for more than two hours. I wondered how the booksellers protected the books and how they got home after the downpour. I hope none of the books have been drenched in the rain because I feel sad if any book is damaged even slightly.