The day I was waiting for eagerly for almost two years finally dawned on the 18th of December when the 34thHyderabad National Book Fair opened. Though I keep buying books all through the year, at Abids on Sundays and in bookstores, there’s something thrilling to look for books in the stalls at the Book Fair. I’ve been coming to the Hyderabad Book Fair for nearly three decades right from the year it began and not missing a year. Usually I end up buying a lot of books at the Book Fair and almost all of them second hand books.
This year too it was no different as I ended up buying several books in all in the numerous visits I made to the Hyderabad Book Fair that was quite conveniently not very far from where I live.
Day 1
As is my wont I landed up at the venue of the Hyderabad Book Fair on the first day hours after it was inaugurated. I only looked in the second hand book stalls, most of them put up by the sellers at Abids. There were only a few, not more than five, second hand book sellers from other places. However I ended up buying four good titles on the first day itself and spotted many good titles that I hoped to buy in the subsequent visits I planned to make.
Not so long back I had picked up a title by an author with an intriguing name. It was a nice copy of ‘Footsteps' by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. It was the second title in a quartet, and I bought it knowing it was near to impossible finding the other three titles in the quartet, after reading on the cover that Toer was an Indonesian writer with quite a reputation. The first title I saw at the book fair was a copy of ‘The Mute’s Soliloquy’ by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. I was thrilled to discover that it was a memoir as I love to read writers’ memoirs.
The next find too turned out to be a memoir of a famous writer. It was a copy of ‘Memoirs’ by Kingsley Amis. Coincidentally, I have his famous writer son’s memoir too titled ‘Experience’ that I had found a few years ago in a second hand bookstore in Hyderabad. I have read it but I don’t know when I will find the time to read Kingsley Amis’ memoir.
I haven’t read anything by Yukio Mishima though I have heard and read a lot about him. I hadn’t been able to find titles by this author until last week when I found a copy of ‘The Temple of the Golden Pavilion’ by Yukio Mishima in a stall run by a person from New Delhi. I got it for just hundred rupees.
I hadn’t even covered three stalls in the fair and it was already close to closing time. There were several second hand book stalls I had to check out and I was running out of time. However I planned to visit almost every day and check out all the stalls selling second hand books in the next eleven days that the Hyderabad Book Fair would be held. I had time to check out one last stall and it was where I found the next title. I saw a beautiful copy of ‘And Yet…Essays’ by Christopher Hitchens that I grabbed right away.
As for the prices of the books I felt they were a bit higher but since the Book Fair didn't happen last year I guess it is reasonable for the sellers to recoup their losses during the pandemic. I have nothing to complain.
Haul on the second day's visit will be in the next post soon.
Happy New Year.
1 comment:
Good show.
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