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.