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.