The Sunday Haul (on 14-12-2025)

 

The previous Sunday was at Bengaluru so missed my weekly trip to the Sunday second-hand book market at Abids here. So it was with a bit of excitement that I started for Abids last Sunday as I would meet my bibliophile friends over chai and also meet a new friend I met online who wanted to check out the books at Abids. 

At Chikkadpally I saw two titles that I already had but wanted to buy anyway. However, they were massive tomes and would cost me a bomb so I decided to check them out next Sunday.

A few minutes later I reached Abids and met the person who was waiting for me. We both set out to browse further since he had already bought about half a dozen books by then. Having bought more than a dozen titles at Bengaluru only a few days earlier I was in no mood to buy any more unless something really exceptional turned up. 

As usual, something really exceptionally turned up shortly afterwards. I spotted a copy of ‘No Country for Old Men’ by Cormac McCarthy that had a fantastic cover. I already have a copy of this title that I found in 2012 but this copy was something I had to buy just for the irresistible cover. I turned to the back cover and read that the cover was designed by David Pearson. The title filled the cover in a type of lettering I hadn’t seen before. Though a bit of the cover on the front was torn and some of the pages inside seemed to have a touch of the damage by moisture this Picador edition was otherwise in beautiful condition. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

Then my friend said he wanted to check out the Best Books store which was where we headed for next. I had asked him if he had read anything by Elmore Leonard as I wanted to give him a book as a gift. But there were no Elmore Leonard titles at the store so I settled for a J.M. Coetzee title to give to him. I was surprise when he pulled out a copy of ‘Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River’ by Alice Albinia from the shelves to give to me in turn. I was very pleased to get it and thanked him before he left. 

The Bengaluru Haul (05-08/12/2025)

 

I was in Bengaluru last week and so missed going to Abids but did not miss buying books. I bought more than a dozen books in the bookstores on Church Street during my four day stay there. I had gone to attend the Bengaluru Lit Fest on 6-7 of this month. I reached on Friday and the first thing I did was drop my bags at a hotel, get ready and go to Blossoms first thing. The first book I found was a copy of ‘Penguin special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane’ by Jeremy Lewis that I got for two hundred rupees. By then it was time for lunch that I had at Paakashaala and on the way back dropped in at Select in another lane. Here I did not find anything but asked if they had a copy of a book they had published on one their anniversaries. The owner was kind enough to give it to me for free saying they did not charge for it. I was grateful and just to make things even bought a copy of ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk & White. I have almost half a dozen copies of this title. 

Later I dropped in at Book Hive. Here I found a copy of ‘Dusk and Other Stories’ by James Salter, and a few minutes later found a nice copy of ‘Elephant & Other Stories’ by Raymond Carver, another collection of short stories. I felt overjoyed finding these two short story collections by two of my favorite authors. 

After coffee at India Coffee House I moved on to Book Worm. In the Antique and Rare Books store within store I found two titles I had read about long back in the ‘Endpaper’ column of Pradeep Sebastian, India’s foremost bibliophile. I found a beautiful copy of ‘Among the Gently Mad’ by Nicholas Basbanes and also a nice almost new copy of ‘Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World’ by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. They did not come cheap though. I had to pay a lot to get hold of these two titles but I think for a bibliophile like me these two books are worth it. 

Back at the Blossoms again an hour later I was browsing the Indian writing titles on the shelves when I found two title among the titles there. I was surprised how the copies of non-fiction titles found a place in the fiction shelves. One title was a copy of ‘Peace and Its Discontents’ by Edward Said and the other was a nice copy of ‘Covering Islam’ also by Edward Said. I hadn’t expected to find these two titles and so was quite pleased I found them without any effort. 

On Monday, the last day of my stay at Bengaluru I dropped in at Blossoms again, at their second store. Here I found a copy of ‘Inside the Treasure House’ A Time in Tibet’ by Catriona Bass. Though it had ‘Abacus Travel’ on the top of the cover I noticed at the back that it was published by Rupa. Anyway, since I had never heard of this book and since it looked like something I might like I took it. 

I had a long list of authors whose books I was searching for and one of those was Ross Thomas. One of the salesgirls searched for the authors name on the computer and said there was a copy of ‘Briarpatch’ a title missing in my Ross Thomas collection. I was quite pleased to find it and added it to my growing haul. 

Another title I found there was a nice copy of ‘Distant Neighbours’ by Kuldip Nayar, a book about India and Pakistan issues. I had always wanted to read Kuldip Nayar’s books since he is a well-regarded journalist. I had earlier found copies of his ‘Between the Lines’ and also ‘Scoop’ at Abids. 

Then I went to Bookworm again and after a long search for interesting titles I found a copy of ‘A Short History of the Middle East’ by Gordon Kerr, a title to add to my growing collection of books on the Middle East. This was a slim book and looked like I could finish it in a couple of hours’ reading. 

At the Bangalore Lit Fest on the first day I picked up a copy of ‘This Divided Island’ by Samanth Subramanian. I had earlier read his other book ‘Following Fish’ and had liked the way he wrote. Since this title was about the Sri Lankan war I wanted to read it as I had earlier read Anita Pratap’s book on the war in Sri Lanka. 

On one of the visits to Blossoms on Saturday evening I picked up a copy of ‘Money for Old Rope’ Disorderly Compositions’ by Charles Glass that had a blurb by Christopher Hitchens on the cover. The copy appeared almost brand new and also the author, a journalist, seemed to have covered the Middle East I was immediately drawn to it and bought it. 

So, that was a big haul of more than a dozen books at Bengaluru. In another ten days the Hyderabad Book Fair will open and I do not know how many books I will find there. 2025 is going to be a year of record haul of books. 

The Sunday Haul (on 30-11-2025)

 

Every time I firmly resolve not to buy more than one title at the Sunday Abids second-hand book market I end up finding more than half a dozen titles that I absolutely cannot resist buying. It happened last Sunday when I found six good titles that I decided to bring home and add to the hundreds of books lying around. Also, among my four friends who are also avid book lovers I was the one who bought the most books last Sunday.

The first title I found was a copy of ‘Literary Taste’ by Arnold Bennett that was a slim, small book that seemed to be all about how to form literary taste. I bought it since I do not seem to have any kind of literary taste as I pick up whatever appears good to me. 

Then I almost hopped around with joy when I spotted a copy of ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ by George V. Higgins. Though I already have two copies of the same title with the same cover I bought this copy, my third since I could not bear to leave it behind. I got it for just fifty rupees. 

Then with the same seller I found a copy of ‘Mad Dogs and Diplomats’ by P.L. Bhandari since it looked interesting. The author is a retired diplomat and the book seemed to be about some interesting experiences of his various diplomatic postings. I have to look for another title of his that I think I had found a long time back but now cannot remember the title. 

Then another stroke of luck when I found a copy of ‘My Son’s Father’ by Dom Moraes, his memoir of his father. It was an older edition by Bell Books and this copy too I couldn’t resist buying though I already have a Penguin edition of the same title. 

On the way back I spotted a beautiful copy of ‘Men in White’ by Mukul Kesavan, one of the writers whose columns I find to be extremely well informed and perceptive. As the title says it is a book of cricket, a game that I am not at all interested in. But I know Mukul Kesavan writes well so I bought it to read his prose. 

The last find was a beautiful hardcover copy of ‘Mantras of Change: Reporting India in a Time of Flux’ by Daniel Lak, the BBC correspondent. It is a book of the events he covered when he was in India. An interesting thing happened when I was contemplating buying it. One of my friends asked me how much I thought I would pay for it. I said a hundred rupees. He took the book from hand and said he would get it for fifty rupees and went to the seller. After a while he returned and said the seller wouldn’t give it for less than hundred rupees and so I was right in my estimate of the book’s price. I modestly claim this correct guess about the price came with experience of more than thirty five years buying books at Abids.