The Sunday Haul (on 26-01-2025)

 Though I missed the first day of Hyderabad Literary Festival on the 24^th of this month I attended on the last two days. Last day of the HLF happened to be on Sunday when I am at Abids no matter what. Since I couldn’t be at Abids and also HLF at the same time I solved this dilemma by going to Abids in the morning and to HLF in the afternoon. I had originally planned to give Abids a miss but I am glad I didn’t because I found three wonderful titles at Abids last Sunday.

            At a seller at RTC X-Roads on my way to Chikkadpally and thereafter to Abids I spotted a copy of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ by John Kennedy Toole that I already have a copy of, and also have read. But this copy seemed to be an older edition with an attractive illustration on the front cover that had its top edge on the right torn off. It did not prevent me from buying it since I got it for just thirty rupees. 

        The next find was at Chikkadpally where coincidentally I had found a memoir by John Bernhard whose ‘Correction’ I found with the same seller last Sunday. I hadn’t read anything by Bernhard though I have read a lot about his books. So not wanting to miss out on a great book I picked it up for a hundred rupees. 

                The third and last find was at Abids. A long time back I had come across a copy of ‘On a Shoestring to Coorg: An Experience of Southern India’ by Dervla Murphy that I was foolish enough to let go. Later when I read about it I felt bad and looked for it everywhere and thought I would find it at the second-hand bookstores in Bengaluru. But though I found other titles I did not find the Coorg book. So, when I saw a beautiful copy of ‘On a Shoestring to Coorg: An Experience of Southern India’ by Dervla Murphy on the pavement I pounced on it. I got it for only fifty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 19-01-2025)

A few years ago I had come across a copy of a title by CLR James but it was in such a bad condition that I did not buy it. Now I am not able to recollect the title but I think it was a copy of ‘Beyond a Boundary’ that I found last Sunday at Abids. I was looking for another book, a title on China that I had not bought the previous Sunday thinking I would buy it this Sunday. Unfortunately, I did not find it but found the CLR James title that I got for a hundred rupees only. 

I already have a copy of ‘The Blue Hammer’ by Ross Macdonald but it was a paperback. I saw a beautiful hardcover copy of the same title in a heap selling for just fifty rupees and I could not resist buying it. 

Only the previous Sunday I had bought a title on Russia that I haven’t yet started reading and this Sunday I was surprised to find another similar title- ‘The Russians’ by Hedrick Smith. Smith is a journalist, a veteran New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, and on the cover there was just one word blurb by Time magazine that said ‘Superb’ which was enough reason for me to buy it. 

Later on I spotted a copy of ‘Gathering Evidence’ by Thomas Bernhard not at Abids but at Chikkadpally. Sometime back I had found a title by Bernhard but haven’t found the time to read it. ‘Gathering Evidence’ is a memoir something I love reading especially if they happen to be by writers. I got this too for a hundred rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 12-01-2025)

Even before the first week of the New Year had gone by I broke one of the resolutions I made that I would stop buying books for a couple of weeks in 2025 if not for the first few months. It wasn’t one book I bought but a total of four books. 

To tell the truth I had seen all these titles the previous Sunday, except for the Gauri Lankesh book. I had then decided I would think of buying them if they happened to be around until the next Sunday. So the Sunday came and I found that the three titles I had seen the previous Sunday were at the same place except one book on Australia that I couldn’t find. I was a bit disappointed because it was that book I had wanted to buy. 

 

So the first book was a copy of ‘Russia- Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams’ by David K. Shipler, a book about Russia by a journalist. It was the kind of books I had begun buying of late, journalists’ accounts of a place or a war they were covering. It appeared interesting after I read a few random paragraphs, and got it for fifty rupees only. 

 

The copy of ‘The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story’ ed Blance H. Gelfant, a thick volume with detailed profiles of several writers along with the short stories they had written was one I thought I would find gone but surprisingly no one seemed to have checked it out. This one was a bit expensive at three hundred rupees but it wasn’t what I was a bit worried about but about when I would get around to reading it since I had several books I have to read. 

 

I found a nice copy of 'The Way I See It- A Gauri Lankesh Reader’ ed Chandan Gowda with a different seller and I grabbed it the moment I laid my eyes on it. 

 

I had seen the copy of ‘Reading with Patrick’ by Michelle Kuo, at Chikkadpally the previous Sunday so when I found it at its usual place I bought it. This one cost me a hundred and fifty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 05-01-2024)

After having picked up too many books at Bengaluru last month and again almost a dozen books at the Hyderabad Book Fair in the last week of December I decided not to buy books for at least a few weeks until I had read a few books in the New Year. I thought I’d just go to Abids and look around without buying anything. However, it wasn’t so because who comes back from the second-hand book market on Sundays at Abids without at least one title in hand? 

 

So I bought just one title but that wasn’t technically at Abids but at Chikkadpally. I saw a nice copy of ‘Peregrine’ by J.A. Baker that I later noticed was a NYRB Classic with an introduction by Robert Macfarlane.  I knew it was something good the moment I spotted it, and got it for just eighty rupees. Very rarely do I find books on nature and wildlife so I felt lucky finding this title. 

The Haul at the 37th Hyderabad National Book Fair

 The 2024 Book Fair Haul-1

 

There’s one event I wait for with a lot of excitement and anticipation, and that is the Hyderabad Book Fair that usually is held in December. This year it was from 19-29, December. But this year before stepping into the HBF on the first day of HBF i.e., Dec 19^th, I decided to take it easy and buy not more than six books because only a couple of days earlier I had returned from Bengaluru with a dozen books I had picked up in the bookstores on Church Street. 

 

But I ended up buying a total of twenty books during my six visits to the book fair. I couldn’t resist buying them because each and every of them was a book I wanted to read. There were many titles I did not buy because I feared I would end up with too many unread books. 

As usual I reached there on the first day but couldn’t enter as the CM was inside for the inauguration. But after sometime I noticed people entering from a side entrance and I too went in. I decided to check out only a few stalls on the first day and buy whatever I find good enough. 

These are the titles I found on the first day. 

 

I really did not know Nicholas Basbanes had written this book. I have his classic, ‘A Gentle Madness’ that I bought online last year. I found a beautiful copy of ‘Every Book Its Reader’by Nicholas Basbanes and made it the first book I bought at the HBF. 

 

A journalist friend had told me about Philip Gourevitch’s book about the killings in Rwanda and since then I had been looking for it, and that was about a decade ago. At the Hyderabad Book Fair this year I found ‘We Wish to Inform that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families’ by Philip Gourevitch. I was very glad to have found it. 

 

I had read about Suresh Menon’s book recently and had also looked for it at Bookworm in Bengaluru but they did not have it, and later I almost ordered it online. Somehow I did not order it and was pleasantly surprise to find it within the hour for Rs.250 only! I was pretty amazed when I showed the picture of the cover to the salesman in one of the stalls and he simply walked over to a shelf and pulled it out. I did not expect to find it at the HBF but I am lucky I found ‘Why don’t You Write Something that I Might Read?’ by Suresh Menon.

 

Then there was this slim book that I almost did not buy and in fact had kept it back on the shelf after the seller quoted an outrageous price for it. He later reduced it and I picked it up the copy of  

‘Deccan: Ilustrated Hyderabad’ by Mehdi Saajid and Sibghat Khan

 

 

Not really content with what I found on the first day of HBF I went again on the second day and picked up another half a dozen titles.

 

I had read about tThe Art of the Personal Essay’ by Philip Lopate a long, long time back and had hoped to find it sometime soon. But a decade passed before I came across it at a stall. I did not expect it to be such a big tome and the price was also high. But I think it is worth it since it has more than seventy-five essays by some wonderful writers like William Hazlitt, Annie Dillard etc 

 

Once again another book I wanted to read as soon as I heard about it. I had seen a nice copy of ‘Caste Matters’ by Suranj Yengde at the Best Book Store in Abids but the price sticker on it said ‘Rs.500’ and so I did not buy it. At the HBF I got it pretty cheap. 

 

This was one title I had already read but my copy was destroyed by termites a couple of years ago and I had to burn it. I was pretty pleased to see another copy of ‘Why I am Not a Civil Servant’ by Ajay Singh Yadav’ and I bought it because it is a candid account of the IAS by another IAS who left the service, disillusioned. 

 

Ever since the latest conflict/war in Palestine the book most mentioned on Twitter was the 

‘The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine’ by Rashid Khalidi, and every time I read about it my desire to read it grew like anything. I got a shock when I saw it in one of the stalls that I had already been to on the first day, and wondered how I had missed it. But I thanked my stars that I found it. 

 

I can never read enough books about Africa, by Africans, on Africa so when I saw this book with a dazzling cover I grabbed it. ‘African Rhapsody’ edited by Nadezhda Obradovic is a collection of short stories by African writers, and at last I found a story in it by Ken Saro Wiwa.

 

Earlier in the week I had picked up four wonderful titles by Jan Morris and though there were several other titles I did not buy them because the price was too high. But at HBF I saw two titles I had seen at Blossoms in Bengaluru but did not buy, and was thrilled to get them at half the price. 

The first title was ‘Spain’ by Jan Morris and the other was ‘Heaven’s Command’ by James Morris (Jan Morris’ name before the sex-change surgery). Someday I hope to find the third title in the Empire trilogy. 

 

I skipped a day or two of the HBF and on the next day I found a wonderful title on Africa. I picked up the beautiful copy of ‘The Search for Africa’ by Basil Davidson.

 

The next find was a beautiful copy of ‘Self-Help’ by Lorrie Moore that I already had but this copy that I saw at HBF had a really wonderful cover so I picked it up and got it pretty cheap. 

 

I have bought several books about India as seen by foreigners earlier and had found their views about India pretty interesting without all the sentimental stuff Indian writers write. Another of such books was a copy of ‘Through the Indian Looking Glass’ by David Selbourne that I bought. 

 

I must have bought at least a dozen copies of ‘The Snow Leopard’ by Peter Matthiessen over a period of thirty years and whenever I see a copy I buy it. I spotted another copy with a completely different cover that I immediately wanted to buy, and bought it.

 

 

Even at the HBF in the second-hand book stalls there were lots of books being sold for fifty and also hundred rupees. In one of the fifty rupee lots I saw a copy of ‘Friends & Lovers’ by Oscar Pinkus and bought it based on the blurb on the front cover. 

My next visit to the HBF was on 28^th December, a Sunday. I thought I’d just look around and try not to buy more books but I ended up buying three titles. 

 

I found a beautiful copy of ‘bad land: an american romance’ by Jonathan Raban that had a startlingly attractive cover. I have many titles by Jonathan Raban but this title was not in my collection. 

 

Then I saw another title on Africa, and bought it. It was an almost new copy of ‘The State of Africa’ by Martin Meredith.

 

I had found and read ‘Rogue Male’ by Geoffrey Household and found it a gripping read. In one of the stalls I saw a copy of ‘A Time to Kill’ by Geoffrey Household and picked it up hoping it would be as good as ‘Rogue Male’. 

On the last day of the HBF I picked up two more titles. Somehow I saw a couple of titles of Ved Mehta, and I picked up one of them which was 'John is Easy to Please' that I got for a hundred rupees. 

The last book I bought at HBF on its last day was a beautiful copy of 'A History of the Middle East' by Peter Mansfield that I had seen on the first day but couldn't locate it again even after a detailed search. Luckily, I spotted it in the same stall but on a different shelf. I already have another title by Peter Mansfield- The Arabs.