The Sunday Haul (on 06-07-2025)

 

The previous Sunday I had been late to Abids and so did not have the time to take a leisurely look at the books on the pavements at Abids. Last Sunday, however, I was there before noon but most of the sellers had not set up shop due to Muharram. Out of the few who were present I found three titles that seemed interesting to me. 

The first book I picked up was a nice copy of ‘Indira Gandhi’ by Pupul Jayakar that I had been seeing with a seller since the last couple of weeks. I got it for hundred rupees.

All the titles on the Palestine issue were different ones and last Sunday I found a different title by someone who claimed to be a neutral person, neither a Jew nor a Palestinian. I found a nice copy of ‘Why Blame Israel?’ by Neill Lochery that I got for two hundred rupees. This is another title on the Middle East that I plan to read together with the other titles I have sometime in the coming months.

There were a few additions to the stock of books with a seller in a lane that looked old hardcover titles with the jackets missing. In that pile I spotted a copy with this title on the spine ‘Autobiography- Neville Cardus’. I am not very interested in cricket but know enough that Neville Cardus was a cricket writer and quite famous. So I bought it for a hundred rupees. 

On the way back home I stopped to look at the pile of books that are almost new that a seller keeps on a kind of low bench. I spotted a copy of ‘Blood & Sand’ by Frank Gardner, another memoir by a journalist who had covered the Middle East among other places. I got it for only fifty rupees. 

Somehow it did not seem enough and I felt restless as I hadn’t been to Chikkadpally to look at the titles the couple of sellers there put up for sale. So, in the afternoon I went and picked up a collection of literary essays by a Telugu writer. It was a slim, paperback copy of ‘Sahitya Darshini’ by Kolakaluri Enoch. I got it for thirty rupees only. 

The Sunday Haul (on 29-06-2025)

I had left home early to be at a meeting of fountain pen lovers that takes place every month. I was added to their WhatsApp group by someone I know and days later I read the message about the monthly meeting. The meeting was at 10.30 am in Nexcity near the Sattva Knowledge city. I was surprised at that wonderful place where we could sit and discuss. I was the first to arrive and later joined by a motley groups of people carrying bags filled with exotic and beautiful fountain pens. They showed around their fountain pens and also the bottles of ink they had, scribbling on special notebooks to test the nibs and the color of the inks. I had not taken my collection except one fountain pen so I just looked at the fountain pens they had. But since it was getting late for my Abids hours I left after an hour.

I reached Abids quite late, sometime after one in the afternoon. I found only one book which was a nice copy of ‘Everything is Broken: Life Inside Burma’ by Emma Larkin. Emma Larkin is a writer who made several trips to Burma and this book is an account of what she saw there in the aftermath of a cyclone that hit the country in 2008.

A Lucky Haul’

A couple of Sundays back having finished the browsing on the pavements at Abids I sauntered to the Best Books store down the road. I had found two titles outside on the pavement in front of the store there: a collection edited by John Pilger and a book on Africa that I bought. When I went inside the store to pay for them, I spotted the cover of a book I had read about much on social media but had not expected to find. It was the bright and attractive cover of ‘The Tale of Genji’ by Murasaki Shikibu. I took it out for a closer look and saw that it was a  translation by Royall Tyler and the copy was a Penguin Classics Deluxe edition. I did not want to buy it right away though I felt I had to buy it at any cost. I paid a small advance and told the seller to keep it aside and that I would come later and pay the rest before collecting the copy. 

Sometime last week I rushed to Best Books and collected the copy of ‘Tale of Genji’ that is thicker than a brick and seems to weight more than one kilo! I don’t know when I will get to read this tome running into almost 1200 pages. But I sure am very pleased I found this wonderful book. 

The Sunday Haul (on 15-06-2025)

 Yet another Sunday and yet another haul of five books at Abids. It is becoming harder for me to stop myself from buying books at Abids and also online where I seem to buying more books than at Abids. Last Sunday I was at Abids at my usual time around half past eleven in the morning. 

A few minutes after I reached the first haul was a copy of a book I already have on my bookshelf, and that I had found long back. The copy I saw last Sunday was a good one and since it was coming at only fifty rupees I decided to buy it and in it went into the haul. It was a copy of ‘The Jaguar Smile’ by Salman Rushdie that was a Picador title. 

Since I buy regularly from many of the sellers at Abids some of them stop me and ask me to take a look at some of the books they have kept in a sack. One of the sellers did just that last Sunday and the book I took out from the sack was a nice and almost new copy of ‘Falling off the Map’ by Pico Iyer. I think I have three or four copies of this book with different titles, and only last week I had bought a copy online just because I did not have a copy with that cover. So, I wasn’t exactly inclined to buy the copy from the sack I bought it anyway since I did not want to disappoint the seller. I got it for fifty rupees only. 

 

The next two finds were poetry titles. One was a copy of ‘Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets’ edited by R. Parthasarathy, a beautiful copy in very good condition. It is a collection of a couple of poems by some well-known Indian poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das, Arun Kolatkar, Shiv K. Kumar, Jayanta Mahapatra, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, R. Parthasarathy, Gieve Patel, A.K. Ramanujam, and finally Keki.N. Daruwalla. 

Incidentally the next find was another collection of poetry- Under Orion by Keki N. Daruwalla that I got for only thirty rupees. I guess it is not so easily available and I felt glad I found it since I’ve been reading his poetry since I was in junior college. 

Mohan Rakesh is another Hindi writer I had been trying to find but I got nowhere in my search for his books in Hindi. Instead, last Sunday just under the copy of Keki N. Daruwalla’s ‘Under Orion’ was nestled the copy of ‘Another Life and Other Stories’ by Mohan Rakesh. It is a collection of these eleven stories translated into English: Another Life; A Living; Safety Pin; City Asleep; The Glass Tank; Married Women; Savourless Sins; The Man and the Wall; The Wound; The Stranger; and Animals and ‘Animals’.

The Sunday Haul (0n 08-06-2025)

 Last Sunday turned out to be another five-book haul day. I am getting a bit nervous at the number of books I am buying at Abids and also online this year. At the end of this month which will mark the end of half of the year I will try to count how many books I had bought in the first six months of the year. 

The first title I picked up on Sunday was at a seller in Chikkadpally. I found a copy of ‘The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists and the Stories That Shape the Political World’ by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman. It is about the American press and its coverage of politics there. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

Then the next title was at Abids finding a nice copy of ‘The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die’ by Niall Ferguson. I had been hearing the name of Niall Ferguson a lot and I wanted to see what this book was all about. I got it for fifty rupees from a friendly seller.

Since it was only twelve in the afternoon and too soon to go home, I ambled to the Best Book store down the road to look at the books they keep outside on Sundays. In a separate pile of books with different prices I was thrilled to read the name ‘John Pilger’ on the cover of a hardcover book. I like John Pilger’s journalism and have about four titles by him on my shelves. ‘Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs’ was a collection of twenty investigative stories by reporters like Martha Gellhorn, Wilfred Burchett, James Cameron, Paul Foot, Robert Fisk, Edward Said and others edited by John Pilger. I was thrilled to find a piece by Eduardo Galeano about whom I had read high praise somewhere and been looking for something by him since then. The price was steep at five hundred rupees but I decided to buy it anyway. 

In the same pile was a copy of ‘The Blackman’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State’ by Basil Davidson that too I decided to buy since I already have a copy of his ‘The Search for Africa: A History in the Making’ that I had bought at the Hyderabad Book Fair in December last year. This book was for two hundred and fifty rupees. 

While on the way to catch the bus home I decided to check the few books that an old person lays out on the pavement on the corner of the road towards Nampally. I immediately spotted a copy of ‘The Culture Industry’ by Theodor Adorno that I just grabbed. This is my first Adorno title about which I had read much on social media. I got this for seventy five rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 01-06-2025)

There’s a break in the rains from the early monsoon so it was sunny but warm here in Hyderabad last Sunday. As usual I took off for Abids and first checked out the books at Chikkadpally. 

The first find was a copy of ‘The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India’ by Gyanendra Pandey nicely encased in plastic sleeve. It looked like an academic book but the topic was interesting so I picked it up for a hundred rupees. 

Next find was a book I had read about earlier somewhere and I was pretty excited when I found a nice copy of ‘Joothan: A Dalit’s Life’ by Omprakash Valmiki. It is another title on caste that I have on my shelves. Someday I plan to read them all one by one. 

Then I hopped on to a bus to Koti from where I got into a 218 and got down at GPO. I found a copy of ‘Malabar and the Portuguese’ by K.M. Panikkar that seemed interesting. Also, I had heard the name of K.M. Panikkar somewhere recently. The book was first published in 1929 and the copy I found was reprinted in 1997 by Voice of India, New Delhi. The font is an ancient type and gave an atmosphere of the 1920s. I got it for fifty rupees only.

The Sunday Haul (on 25-05-2025)

 

After the huge haul of more than twenty books the previous Sunday I was reluctant to go to Abids as I was afraid I would find more books to buy. However, keeping my fears aside I went there with the resolve that I would only look and not buy even a single book. My resolve held when I came across a wonderful biography of Indira Gandhi but did not buy it. But the resolve melted when I spotted another book that I felt I would never find again anywhere. 

Exactly a decade ago, in March 2015 I found an old copy of ‘The Love Letter and Other Stories’ by Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer that had fourteen stories in it. I was quite elated at finding a book by a Malayalam writer I had only read about till then. The stories in it were translations of the original Malayalam stories into English. I read all of them and one story about a boy and an elephant remained in my mind. (see post dated 8 March, 2015)

Then last Sunday on the same stretch of pavement at Abids where I had found my first Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer book I found a copy of ‘Me Grandad ‘Ad and Elephant’ by Vaikkom Muhammad Basheer. I almost did not look at the cover of the book that had the title ‘Me Grandad ‘Ad and Elephant’ peeking out on the top of the book while the rest of the book was under another book. I thought it was a childrens’ book and was about to walk away when something made me take out the book for a better look and when I saw the name of the author I was thrilled. I felt a rush of pure joy at finding this wonderful book. 

A Penguin title, it has only three stories: Childhood Friend; Me Grandad ‘Ad an Elephant; and Pattumma’s Goat that were translated from the Malayalam by R.E. Asher and Achamma Coilparampil Chandarsekaran. The cover illustration is done by Krishnendu Chaki and cover design by Amiya Bhattacharya. Also I loved the font used that reminds me of good books. 

It looked an old copy and inside I saw the round stamp of ‘Kaaizens Reading Space & Library’ on one of the front pages. I got this book for just fifty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 18-05-2025)

Last Sunday I made the biggest ever hauls of my life when I picked up more than twenty books in a matter of a couple of hours. The previous Sunday with a seller at Chikkadpally I spotted about two dozen titles of J.M. Coetzee that I almost bought right away. Somehow, I decided not to be impulsive and wait a week before deciding to buy them.

Even before I could get to that seller who had the J.M. Coetzee I found a copy of ‘A Career in Book Publishing’ by Samuel Israel that was an NBT title. A long time I had found a copy of ‘Editors on Editing’ that had an article by Samuel Israel that I found to be very useful and informative. I picked up this copy of ‘A Career in Book Publishing’ for fifty rupees. This was the first title in the big haul.

The next find was another wonderful title, a thick volume. I found a beautiful copy of ‘‘The Granta Book of the American Short Story’ ed Richard Ford that I grabbed right away. It had more than forty short stories by writers like Paul Bowles, John Cheever, Robert Coover, Eudora Welty and other well-known short story writers. However, there were names of writers I hadn’t heard before but what made me very happy was that there were stories by writers I like especially James Salter, James Baldwin, and Lorrie Moore. I got this book for a hundred and fifty rupees. 

Next stop was the seller who had the Coetzee titles and I approached with a bit of trepidation. I had already decided to buy all those titles and I was anxious if they were all there. Luckily I noticed that they were all there at the same place I had seen them. These are the J.M.Coetzee titles I picked up: 

‘Disgrace’ 

‘Youth’

‘Elizabeth Costello’

‘Foe’

‘Slow Man’

‘Boyhood’

‘Diary of a Bad Year’

‘In the Heart of the Country’

‘Dusklands’

‘Waiting for the Barbarians

‘Age of Iron’

Summertime’

‘The Master of Petersburg’

‘Life & Times of Michael K’

‘The Schooldays of Jesus’

‘The Childhood of Jesus’

‘Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011’ Paul Auster and J.M.Coetzee. 

I think all these titles belonged to one person who must have sold off his collection of J.M. Coetzee titles. Some of these copies have a curious dedication on the inside title pages. 

Curiously, I found another title edited by Richard Ford who also edited the Granta Book of American Short Story. Another coincidence was that it was also by Granta!

I almost decided against buying ‘The Womanizer’ ed Richard Ford but when I saw the name of William T. Vollman in the contents page I bought it. I had been looking for something by Vollman since a long time and at last I found something. 

The last book I found at Abids was a nice copy of 'Love & Summer' by William Trevor. Though I had earlier found two copies of this title I couldn't resist buying this as I was getting for only fifty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 11-05-2025)

It has become a little cool in Hyderabad thanks to the regular and almost daily thunderstorms towards evening/night bringing in rain. On Sunday too it was marginally cool though I took my cap along. Though I did not spend more than an hour at Abids because I had to return home for a function at home I managed to find more than a couple of good titles some of them I already have. 

The first find was a nice copy of ‘City of Djinns’ by William Dalrymple that I do not remember buying before but at the back of my mind was a vague feeling that I had already bought it earlier. However knowing the noted historian’s books I did not mind possessing a second copy of ‘City of Djinns’ so I picked it up. 

Somehow, I have not read a single SciFi title till now because I find it not to my taste. When I spotted a copy of ‘Broken Symmetries’ by Paul Preuss, a Penguin title I decided to buy it not because I wanted to read it but because I wanted to give it to someone I know who is a huge fan of SciFi. 

Another title I had found a few months back was ‘Foreign Correspondent: 50 Years of Reporting South Asia’ edited by John Eliott and others that I still have not managed to find the time to read, and it was the same title I came across at Abids. Not willing to let it be on the pavement I bought it. It was in good condition and I have in mind someone who told me his dream was to be a foreign correspondent to whom I can give it. 

A long time back a friend who is an avid reader told me about ‘Travels with the Fish’ by CY Gopinath and urged me to read it saying that it was very funny. I couldn’t find a copy and somehow it did not strike me to ask my friend to lend me his copy. But last Sunday I found a copy at last, and felt a bit elated that I had finally got hold of of it. 

Since I had missed stopping at Chikkadpally in the morning I felt restless and after lunch I went there and found a copy of ‘The Iranian Afaquies Contribution to the Qutbshahi and Adilshahi Kingdoms’ by Dr. Sadiq Naqvi. I also spotted a huge collection of titles by a famous Nobel Prize winning author that I planned to pick up next Sunday. Also there were two other wonderful titles I did not buy but told myself I would pick them up next Sunday. 

The Sunday Haul (on 04-05-2025)

 I was glad to be back at Abids last Sunday as I had missed going there since I was travelling in Pune. It was a bit hot when I stepped out of the house and headed to Chikkadpally before going to Abids. 

At a seller in Chikkadpally I picked up the copy of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ by Franz Fanon that I had been seeing at the same place since about a month. I already have a copy but this copy I saw last Sunday had a different and attractive cover. Besides it looked almost brand new so I picked it up for a hundred rupees. 

With another seller at Chikkadpally I found yet another copy of ‘Art of Living’ by Epitectus translated by  Sharon Lebell that again I have a couple of copies of. I took it and later gave it to someone who follows me on Twitter and who I have been meeting since the past few Sundays at Abids. I got this book for fifty only. 

             A couple of months ago I had found a copy of ‘Viewlu Reviewlu’ by the revolutionary poet Sri Sri and since I read Telugu very slowly I am only half way through it. Sri Sri is a revolutionary poet whose verse stirs the blood when you hear him read it. I was lucky to find his ‘Mahaprasthaanam’ a couple of years ago, and last Sunday I found another of his titles. I found a copy of ‘Khadga Srishti’ at a seller in Chikkadpally. 

    

        At Abids the only title I found was a copy of ‘On Being the Right Size’ by JBS Haldane that wasn’t in such a good condition as a portion of the spine on the top was torn off. But I took it since it appeared to be a good collection of essays by JBS Haldane who had settled in India later in life. I got this title too for a mere fifty rupees. 

            I thought I knew the names of all books that Somerset Maugham until I saw one I had not seen anywhere. I found a copy of ‘The Explorer’ by Somerset Maugham that didn’t take me long to buy. 

The Monday Haul at Pune (on 28-04-2025)

 Last weekend I was in Pune for a family function so could not go to Abids in Hyderabad on Sunday. The whole of Saturday went in the event and on Sunday we went out of Pune and returned in the night. Only on Monday we went around Pune and while going to the Dagdu Ganesh temple I saw a few people with books piled on tables on the pavements near the temple. So, while my family went to the temple I checked out the books the sellers had.

A long time back maybe twenty years or so I saw a copy of ‘Paris to the Moon’ by Adam Gopnik that I did not buy because the title sounded odd and I wasn’t yet deeply into travel books. Later when I read somewhere that it was a good book I regretted not picking it up. One of the sellers at Pune had a copy of ‘Paris to the Moon’ in his pile of books on top of a table. I thought he would ask something like two hundred rupees for it but he took me by surprise when he asked for just seventy rupees for it!

The next title I found was a copy of ‘Punchtantra’ by Gautam Bhatia that I got for just fifty rupees. 

We were put up in Kothrud so I spotted ‘Irani Café’, a nice open café that I decided to check out sometime in the morning. I got the chance on Monday, the day we were leaving Pune, while walking around early in the morning. I was surprised it was open so I went in and sat there reading the newspapers I had bought and sipped chai. I spent about half hour there, a peaceful half hour that I rarely get. It felt good sitting in the neat and welcoming space that I felt glad I had spotted. 

The Sunday Haul (on 20-04-2025)

 

It was another hot day last Sunday in Hyderabad. The sun was blazing down as I reached Abids to prowl the lanes looking for good books to pick up at the Sunday second-hand book market. The first find was a copy of ‘Recovering the Lost Tongue; The Saga of Environmental Struggles in Central India by Rahul Banerjee’ that is about the issues affecting environment in tribal areas in central India. I do not know when I will get to read it. 

The next find was a copy of ‘Brief Encounters’, a Granta issue. It is a collection of accounts by writers about their encounters with other writers and features Paul Theroux, John McGahern etc. This I am planning to start reading one of these days. 

Later I met an X mutual, Srinivas, and we sat in Star of India and discussed the books we had picked up until then. He gave me a hardcover copy of a Telugu novel ‘Salaam Hyderabad’ by Lokeshwar that he told me was based in Hyderabad, and urged me to read as he had found it to be very good. My Telugu is shaky but I try to read a couple of Telugu newspapers every Sunday, and had also read a couple of Telugu novels a long time back. I have to take out time to read it one of these days

On the way to Abids in the morning I had seen the same copy of ‘The Price of Inequality’ by Joseph Stiglitz with a seller at Chikkadpally that I have been seeing since the past couple of weeks. I did not buy it since it appeared to be an intimidating tome though the subject was something I felt I should read. Anyway, in the evening I felt restless that I had not picked it up and also thought it had remained unsold for so long because I was destined to buy it. So I started off for Chikkadpally and picked it up for a hundred and fifty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 13-04-2025)

It is heating up here in Hyderabad with the temperatures around 40 degrees in the day time. Though I had reached early with the intention of quickly doing the rounds and leaving early before it got too hot the sellers had not yet spread their books on the pavements. So I lingered for a long time checking out the books on the pavements. The first book I picked up was a nice copy of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ by John Kennedy Toole that I have been seeing with the same seller for quite a few weeks now. Since no one seemed to be interested in it I picked it up.

 

The next find was yet another title on writing. I guess I have around two hundred and fifty titles on writing on my shelves and anyone with even a bit of common sense wouldn’t have thought of buying another title on writing. But that’s what I did when I saw the beautiful copy of ‘How to Write’ edited by Philip Oltermann and was from ‘the guardian’ newspaper group. I got this British Library discard for a hundred rupees. The light green cover with an ancient typewriter was so attractive I would have bought it even if I had no intention of learning to write. 

I just finished reading ‘The Shock Doctrine’ by Naomi Klein who had mentioned Jeffrey Sach’s name quite a few times. Though I had heard his name earlier I had not found any book by him until last Sunday when I spotted a beautiful copy of ‘The End to Poverty’ by Jeffrey Sachs that I instantly grabbed. 

The next find was a copy of a book that I already have. I had found a copy of ‘Act One’ by Moss Hart a long time back and had also read this memoir of a playwright. I liked how Moss Hart took to writing plays and when I found a hardbound copy a couple of years ago I had picked it up. When I saw another paperback copy of ‘Act One’ in a heap of books selling for twenty rupees I picked it up. 

The Sunday Haul (06-04-2025)

 It was hot again in Hyderabad after a couple of days of relatively cooler days. I got late starting from home for Abids and I took an 8A from Secunderabad to avoid the Ram Navami procession. I had to skip going to Chikkadpally before going to Abids as is my usual Sunday routine. 

The first title I found was a copy of ‘Funny Business: An Outsider’s Year in Japan’ by Gary Katzenstein that I somehow hadn’t picked up last Sunday when I saw it because I did not notice the sub-title. I saw that it was a Paladin title and felt pleased that Paladin publishes good travel titles. Somehow I felt terribly glad that I had found a wonderful book. 

A fortnight ago I had found a copy of ‘Best Loved Indian Stories of the Century Vol II’ edited by Indira Srinivasan and Chetna Bhatt at Abids. I had wondered if I would be able to find Volume I of the same collection. I don’t want to call it a miracle but I found Vol I at the same seller at Abids. I must have missed looking carefully or the seller had not kept it for sale. Either way I was happy I found the entire collection. The twenty stories in this collection are stories in English by Indian writers writing in English. I have read some of them earlier in other places but some are new that I want to read one by one over a period. 

The next find was a beautiful copy of ‘The Strange Case of Billy Biswas’ by Arun Joshi, one of my favorite writers. I already have three copies of the same title including two copies with the same cover. I simply cannot resist buying any title by this author. I got it for fifty rupees. 

My friend Srinivas who I met through X gave me a nice copy of ‘The Gentleman in Moscow’ by Amor Towles and urged me to read it since it was a wonderful book he said. I must take time to read it one of these days. 

The Sunday Haul (on 30-03-2025)

 It wasn’t too hot last Sunday but I had my cap on as I left for Abids for the Sunday second-hand book market. I got there just around noon, and within minutes I found the first two titles at a seller opposite the GPO. The first title I found was a copy of ‘Righteous Victims; A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-2001’ by Benny Morris with half of the author’s name torn away. It was thick as a brick and from the blurbs on the back cover it looked like to be a good book. 

I was still excited with finding it when I spotted the second title almost related to the same topic. I found a copy of ‘The Lion’s Gate’ by Steven Pressfield with an arresting cover. This was about the six day war that took place in 1967 between Israel and the Arab countries. I have another book on the same topic titled simply ‘The Six Day War’ by Jeremy Bowen that I had found at a second-hand book store sometime in January. It was a good haul so far and I had a wonderful feeling about finding these two books.

Then with another seller I found two more wonderful books. The first was a beautiful copy of ‘Antarctica’ by Claire Keegan. A couple of months back I had read ‘Small Things Like These’ and had found it to be a wonderful short read. ‘Antarctica’ is a collection of fifteen short stories by Claire Keegan.

The other book was a nice copy of ‘The Third Reich’ by Roberto Bolano, another thick volume that I almost did not buy because I have not yet read ‘2666’ and ‘The Savage Detectives’ that I had found long ago. I do not know when I will get the time to read all these books but I went ahead and bought the book because it is not every day that one finds books by Bolano at Abids.