The Sunday Haul (on 13-03-2022)

More than two decades ago, sometime in 2000 or so, at Abids I found a copy of Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ that had no cover and the title was written with a sketch pen on a white cover. I didn’t know it when I picked it up that reading the book would spur me on to write a novel I had in mind at that time but didn’t really have the courage or the confidence to begin writing. I still have that copy that I treasure. It was in ‘On Writing’ that I first read about ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk and White that Stephen King urged everyone who aspires to be a writer to read. So, aspiring writer that I was I looked around for it but did not find it until a couple of years later. It was the third edition with the classic light yellow cover with the title in brown.

Sometime later I read that the fourth edition of TEOS had come out and since there was no way I could find it right away I managed to ask a relative in the US who was visiting to get it for me. It was a hardcover copy and a brand new one. Since then I have picked up almost every copy that I came across and also have given away a few copies to people who had aspirations of writing. Last Sunday at Abids I came across another copy of the fourth edition of ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk & White. But this was a paperback copy and I grabbed it right away for eighty rupees. It is almost a new and pristine copy that I am pleased to have found.

Any title I see with ‘writing’ or ‘writer’ in it I pick up and it is how I have ended up buying more than two hundred titles on writing/writers. But unfortunately even after reading all of them, and even after rereading some of them my writing still remains as bad as it was before I started reading them. Anyway last Sunday at Abids I found yet another title on writing- ‘Writing in the Arts and Sciences’ eds Elaine P. Maimon and others. This was a hardbound copy that is published by Little Brown which was what made me buy it in the first place.

These second hand booksellers’ groups on WhatsApp that I have joined have regular sales, sometimes twice a week. Since I am part of a few groups there’s a sale almost every day. However I buy only a few titles that I do not usually find in Abids or in the second hand bookstores in Hyderabad. One such title that I had been looking for was ‘Following Fish’ by Samanth Subramaniam that almost everybody who has read it says it is a fantastic title and so sharpening my desire to lay my hands on it. It is one of the titles on travels in India by Indian writers that is missing and that I wanted to desperately add to my small collection of such titles. At last I managed to claim it on a sale on WhatsApp and it was delivered last week. I think I paid hundred and fifty rupees for this book.