The Sunday Haul (on 24-04-2022)

  If it weren’t for the powerful lure of finding good books at the Abids book bazaar on Sunday I wouldn’t have stepped out of the home in this brutal heat. It was yet another very hot Sunday morning last Sunday when I started for Abids. But I was glad I went because I found three very good titles all at one place with one seller. 

 

Not only do I love reading both fiction and non-fiction titles I also love reading literary criticism, essays on literature, books. Over the years I have managed to find a few wonderful titles by writers like Harold Bloom, Julian Symons, Cyril Connolly and such writers who write perceptive essays that help me understand literature better. One name I had come across so long ago that I almost forgot it until I saw it on the cover of a book I spotted last Sunday. It was Frank Kermode and the book was ‘The Uses of Error’ that was a hardcover book with a nice plastic covering. It had a stamp of the British Library but no mention whether it was a discarded title. But I was delighted to find that it was a collection of book reviews and essays one of which was on Cyril Connolly. The actual delight was in getting the book for only fifty rupees, a steal at any rate. 

 

There were also two other titles near it and it appeared as if they all were a part of someone’s collection. One title was ‘A Tomb for Boris Davidovich’ by Danilo Kis. It was a Penguin paperback and this book too had a cover that was encased in a plastic jacket. I was thrilled to read on the cover that it had an introduction by Joseph Brodsky. I got this again for fifty rupees.

 The third title was a Penguin edition of ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark, again with a plastic jacket over the cover. Though I already have a copy of this title I bought it to give it away to interested readers. I got this too for fifty rupees. 

 

A cool haul on a hot day. 

The Sunday Haul (on 17-04-2022)

 After two Sundays that I missed not visiting Abids as I was away in Ooty on official work I was very excited to be back at Abids last Sunday morning. Only after I was at Abids browsing the books laid out on the pavements did I feel I was truly back home. Ever since I stepped off the plane the previous Sunday I was waiting for the moment when I would reach Abids on Sunday morning and begin searching for the treasures.

Once again travelogues seemed to be the theme after all the travelling I did this month. The first title I found was a copy of ‘Maiden Voyage’ by Denton Welch. The first thing that caught my eye was the cover which had an illustration of a man standing in a street and the caption says that it is a young man’s account of China in the thirties. The other thing was that it was a title from the Penguin Travel Library and I buy anything from it with my eyes closed. I hadn’t heard the name- Denton Welch- before so I was curious who it could be. Inside I read that ‘Maiden Voyage’ is the first published work of Denton Welch who was hailed as one of the gifted prose writers to emerge in post-war Britain. I was pretty excited that I had found a good book. I got this title for only fifty rupees. 

The Ooty Haul

A government job isn’t something that’ll normally take you places but the one I am doing has luckily for me turned out to be one that’s made me go quite a few interesting places. Over the years I’ve managed to be luckier than most people at my level in the government when it comes to travelling. I’ve been to Delhi about fifty times in five years, have been to Kohima, Itanagar in Arunachal, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and since the past two years, to Ooty. I must be one of the fortunate few who get to travel to Ooty on work that’ll last two weeks.

This year too I am in Ooty for two weeks coordinating a trek for officers who are getting trained in the Institute I am posted in. I will write about it in a separate post because here in this post I want to write about the Ooty haul. In my previous visit to Ooty last year I chanced upon the Church Hill Book Store where I found three wonderful titles, one being a title by William Trevor. This year too when I was told I had to go to Ooty again I looked forward to visit Church Hill Bookstore. But when I saw that it wasn’t open for the two days that I dropped in there I was disappointed. 

 

Since I hadn’t brought more than a single title to read in Ooty I wanted to buy more books. So I dropped in at Higgin Bothams on the main market road. I was excited when I saw a new copy of Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ on the shelf. I have bought about a dozen copies of this title over the years because I love it very much. Whenever I see a copy of ‘On Writing’ new or secondhand I buy it right away which is what I did at Higgin Bothams- bought the copy I saw. 

Next I spotted a copy of ‘The Greatest Tamil Stories Ever Told’ selected and edited by Sujatha Vijayaraghavan and Mini Krishnan that I decided to buy after I looked at the list of authors whose stories were in it. There were writers like Pudumaipithan, Ashokamithran, Sundara Ramaswamy, Perumal Murugan, Baama, Kalki whose stories I had read. There were thirty stories in all and I haven’t read the stories by writers I wasn’t familiar with. Though it was priced at Rs 699 I bought the beautiful hardcover copy for it was worth a lot more than what I paid for it. 

 

After several calls Arthy Vivek who runs the store told me over the phone that the store hasn’t been opened since more than five months and that she was thinking of closing it down. However she opened the store once and I managed to find two titles. I found a beautiful copy of ‘Flaubert’s Parrot’ by Julian Barnes that I was looking for ever since I read ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes. 

The other title I found was ‘Rites of Passage’ by Sanjoy Hazarika. I had read a different title on the conflict in the North East by Sanjoy Hazarika and found it full of insights. Needless to say I picked up this title too. The biggest surprise was that I got both the above titles for hundred rupees each. However, I feel terribly sad that Church Hill Book Store is soon closing down. I hope it doesn’t happen.

The Sunday Haul (on 27-03-2022)

 

There are a few writers who write with great clarity on difficult subjects like religion. One such writer is Susan Visvanathan whose essay I read once a long time back. I think she used to have a column in a newspaper or magazine that I am now unable to recollect but her name has stuck in my mind. Last Sunday at Abids near the GPO I spotted a copy of ‘The Visiting Moon’ by Susan Visvanathan. I picked it up and saw that it was a hardcover copy of a collection of stories. I got it for only eighty rupees which was far less than what I had expected the seller to ask for it.

The next two Sundays I would be in Ooty on work so I wanted to find a few more books at Abids but I couldn't find any. The thought of not being at Abids for two Sundays was hard to bear but I couldn't avoid it.