The Sunday Haul (on 19-04-2026)

Last Sunday it wasn't as hot as it was the previous Sunday. However it needed one to wear a cap and carry a water bottle which I didn't though I wore the cap as usual. The weather forecast was that there would be a thunderstorm in the evening that would cool things down. Actually there was a bit of rain on Saturday night somewhere in the city and that must have been the reason why it wasn't very hot on Sunday in Hyderabad. 

I have managed to find many books about grammar, words, and also about sentences and felt that there would be nothing below words but last Sunday I was proved wrong. I found a nice copy of  'The Alphabet' by David Sacks that was about the origin of each letter of the English alphabet. It was an interesting book that I wanted to read right away and so bought it without much thought. I got this wonderful title for just fifty rupees. 

One seller in a lane asked us ( I was with a friend) if we would look at some books that he had recently got. It turned out that he had a few sacks full of books from a library. There were hundreds of books and we could only go through the bound copies of old Indian titles and also other classics. I managed to choose a copy of 'The Sins of Appu's Mother' by T. Janakiraman. I had read about Janakiraman only recently somewhere I cannot recollect. It is a slim book that will not take more than a couple of hours to finish. 

Sometime in 2022 I had found a copy of 'A Mad World, My Masters: Tales from a Traveller's Life' by Johan Simpson the BBC journalist. I liked reading about his travels and the experiences he had as a journalist in strife-ridden places in the world. Last Sunday in a heap of books selling for Rs.50 I picked up a copy of 'Strange Places, Questionable People' by John Simpson. 

The Sunday Haul (on 12-04-2026)

 
        The weather forecast had said that the next ten days from the 12th to 22nd of this month it would be very hot and that heatwaves are likely. It was indeed hot on Sunday morning when I stepped out of the house to go on my weekly visit to Abids to check out the books in the second-hand books market there. For a brief moment I wondered if it would be a good idea to stay home instead of getting roasted in the sun for a couple of hours. I put the idea of staying at home out of my mind and went ahead. 

At the first stop in RTC X Roads I found a copy of 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again' by David Foster Wallace that I had found a long time back and had also read it. I picked it up to send to a friend in Mumbai who is a David Foster Wallace fan. I got it for eighty rupees. Next find was also with the same seller. I spotted a copy of 'The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing' by David Morley that I also decided to buy. I can never get enough of books on writing so in it went into the haul. This was for a hundred rupees. When I read a few paragraphs at random I felt that it was more interesting than other academic books on creative writing I've read so far. 

        Next find with another seller in Chikkadpally was a beautiful copy of 'Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman' by Richard P. Feynman. I see so many copies of this title but haven't bought one so far. I am rather poor in physics and mathematics so I kept away from it for a long time. But I bought it for my son in the hope that he finds the time to read it. I paid a hundred rupees for it. 

        Then I left for Abids and reached after half hour. One of the first titles I saw with the guys in front of the GPO was a book with an attractive cover. It was a copy of 'Themes in Indian History: Caste in History' edited by Ishita Banerjee-Dube, an Oxford Paperbacks publication. I bought it right away, another good addition to my collection of titles on caste that is now about a dozen titles strong. I paid a hundred and eighty rupees for this wonderful title. 

            Then I met my friends at the Star of India cafe and sat talking with them as usual about books, writers, and also movies. It was almost an hour when we decided to go our ways. Outside I spotted a copy of 'East of the Sun' by Siddhartha Sarma, a travel book on the North-East India. I already have about half a dozen such titles on travel in the North East India so I thought it would make a good addition to it and so bought it for a hundred rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 05-04-2026)

It started as usual last Sunday. I stepped out around ten in the morning for Abids and after breakfast of idli at Snehita I found a copy of 'Human Wrongs: Reflections on Western Global Dominance and its Impact Upon Human Rights' by Just World Trust. It was a collection of essays on various events in different parts of the world written by various people of which there were familiar names like Claude Alvares, Vandana Shiva, Ashis Nandy from India and the rest I did not know. This was with a seller at the RTC Crossroads. 

Then got into the bus to Koti and from there another bus to Abids. With a seller behind GPO near Grand I spotted a copy of 'Solitude: A Return to the Self' by Anthony Storr. 

Sometime in 2016 in an essay I read in The Guardian online there was a list of 'Top Ten Books for the Brokenhearted' and one of the titles in it was 'Solitude' by Anthony Storr. I did not know I had written down this list in a notebook that I accidentally happened to read only today. 'Solitude' is about how solitude is a necessary condition for creative people. Storr writes about how Edward Gibbon, Beethoven, Anne Sexton, Beatrice Potter and others expressed their creativity best in solitude. I got this title for a hundred rupees. 

As someone who reads a lot and aspiring to write I know the power of words and so try to find new words and their meanings. I actually read dictionaries for fun so when I saw a copy of 'Words or My Private Babel' by Farrukh Dhondy I was intrigued. I read his column in a local newspaper.

Ever since I read about it I had been looking for 'The Complete Polysyllabic Spree' by Nick Hornby which I had read was about reading. I had wondered if I would be lucky enough to find it at all. Somehow last Sunday just when I was setting out for home I wandered into the lane near Hollywood shoes and spotted a nice copy of the book. 

I am feeling anxious about the number of books I am buying at Abids every Sunday but cannot seem to put a stop to this buying spree. 

The Sunday Haul (on 29-03-2026)

 It was the sort of day when the weather tells you that summer has arrived. It was pretty hot and quite uncomfortable outdoors when I stepped out to go to Abids. I reached Chikkadpally first where I found two good titles. 

The first find was a copy of 'Indira Gandhi: Return of the Red Rose' by K. A. Abbas, published by Orient Paperbacks and I noticed that the price printed on the spine was Rs.3. 'Return of the Red Rose' is a biography of Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, and also a sort of chronicle of events in her life that KA Abbas witnessed as a journalist. Coincidentally I spotted another book by KA Abbas on Indira Gandhi by the same publisher though it had a different title I cannot recollect now. If I see it next Sunday I will pick it up.

A long time back I had found and read 'Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History' by Robert D. Kaplan and found it to be a wonderful read about the background and history of the Balkan nations. I loved it more because it was also a sort of travelogue cum reportage. Last Sunday the second title that I found at Chikkadpally was a beautiful copy of 'The Revenge of Geography' by Robert D. Kaplan that I got for a hundred rupees. 

At Abids in a heap of books being sold three apiece for a hundred rupees I managed to dig out a copy of 'Confrontation: The Middle East War and World Politics' by Walter Laquer. Somehow of late I have grown very interested in knowing about the Middle East and the issues festering there so this 1974 book was a timely find. With this title I have about a dozen titles on the Middle East and I guess it is high time I read all these titles at one go and get an idea about this part of the world that seems to be in a state of permanent unrest. 

The Sunday Haul (on 22-03-2026)

 Last Sunday it was a bit warm after a week of relatively cool weather. My first stop was at Chikkadpally where I found a beautiful copy of 'Tales from Kathasaritsagara' translated by Arshia Sattar. I was looking for something like this, a collection of ancient tales and so grabbed it. I got it for two hundred rupees, a bit high but then it was a beautiful copy. 

Later I reached Abids. There was not much of a crowd as it was the day after Ramzan festival and so some of the sellers at Abids were missing. A few minutes after reaching Abids I found a copy of 'Ake: The Years of Childhood' by Wole Soyinka. It is a memoir of the Nigerian writer, a genre I love to read. I got it for fifty rupees. 

Afterwards I sat in Bench restaurant with two of my bibliophile friends and had a long talk for more than an hour well until lunch time. 

The Sunday Haul (on 15-03-2026)

 It was the usual Sunday morning routine except for a small change. None of the usual friends I meet at Abids turned up so I did the browsing all by myself. Before I reached Abids I got down at Chikkadpally as usual where I found two good titles. 

The first find was a nice copy of 'The Loser' by Thomas Bernhard that had a striking cover. I think I already have some title it not this by Thomas Bernhard that I had found sometime last year. I have to check my notes and confirm it. I got this book for eighty rupees only. With the first find a good title I set off hoping to find more. I just now checked my notes and realized that I had found three titles by Thomas Berhard. One was 'Gargoyles' and the others were 'Gathering Evidence' and also 'Corrections; by Thomas Bernhard and that I had not read them yet. 

The second find was a copy of 'Light at the Edge of the World' by Wade Davis that I knew I had to buy. Not only the cover pulled me to it the fact that it was a sort of travel title by an anthropologist convinced me to buy it. 

I have this habit of buying multiple copies of titles I already have. So when I saw a wonderful and almost brand new copy of 'Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China' by Colin Thubron I picked it up though I have a copy of it on my bookshelf that I can see even as I type this blog post. The earlier copy I had found long back and was a good enough copy though I have yet to read it. I got it for eighty rupees. 

I had seen a lot with a seller that contained quite a few books of history and literature. I had seen them the previous Sunday and had thought I would check again this Sunday. One of the titles I wanted to buy was gone and the other I had thought of buying was a copy of 'History of the Pelopennosian War' by Thucydides that I picked up. I have a faint memory of buying a copy of this same title somewhere a long time back but since I wasn't sure I picked up this copy as well. 

Once again I came across a copy of a book that I had found a long back and that which I had given away after reading it. But when I saw that the copy of 'Road Runner' by Dilip D'Souza that I spotted was a copy signed by the author I picked it up. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 08-03-2026) and The Nagpur Haul

It was a pretty hot Sunday last Sunday in Hyderabad. It is a sign of how hot the coming weeks are going to be since it is not even officially summer yet. However since it has become a difficult habit to shake off I set out for Abids soon after breakfast. The haul last Sunday turned out to be titles I already have on my shelves.  

The previous Sunday I had seen a copy of 'The Imaginary Girlfriend: A Memoir' by John Irving but did not buy it since I had bought a copy long back. I had looked for it during the week as I needed to refer to it for a writing project I was working on but couldn't find it anywhere on my shelves. So last Sunday when I found it at the same place I picked it up. The only difference was that it had been in a Rs.50 the previous Sunday but last Sunday it was in a Rs.30 heap. 

Down the road with another seller at Chikkadpally I spotted a copy of 'From Heaven Lake' by Vikram Seth that too I already have read having found it a couple of years ago. But somehow I couldn't walk away leaving it behind because it was a good copy and so took it. I got this title for fifty rupees only. 

The Haul at Nagpur

Last week I was in Nagpur for two days. A college friend I've known since 1981 had invited me to his son's marriage and warned me that I had to come or else... Anyway, I had been looking for an excuse to leave Hyderabad for a couple of days so this came as a blessing. I was told that there were no proper second-hand bookstores in Nagpur but there were some sellers on the pavements on either side of a flyover at Zero Mile. I decided to check them out and was a bit excited wondering what I would find though I had no high expectations.

On Friday after the marriage was over in the morning I set off for Zero Mile in an electric auto. The driver, an old gentleman, asked me where I was from and I told him I was from Hyderabad. I also told him I was looking for the booksellers. So he kindly stopped at the spot where the sellers had their stalls. I found nothing on one side of the flyover and then crossed over to the other side. In a stall I asked to see inside and they let me in. There was a tall pile of books on a shelf and right on the top I spotted the title 'The Half Known Life' and felt excited when I saw the name 'Pico Iyer' beside it. It was a hardcover copy and somehow I was not aware of this title. 

I felt very lucky finding it and luckier still when I got it for just a hundred and fifty rupees. It was in good condition and I felt glad that I had managed to find a good book in Nagpur. 

The Sunday Haul (on 01-03-2026)

It was a sombre Sunday morning as I woke up to the news of the bombings in Iran. Somehow it was all very disturbing and so in that mood I set out for Abids not really wishing to find anything. I went there just out of habit. It wasn't too hot though we are already in March. Also in the news was the forecast by the weather department that it was going to be a very, very hot summer over here. 

As usual I began with the sellers in Chikkadpally and the first title in the Sunday haul was a hardcover copy of 'India: Social Structure' by M.N. Srinivas that I got for fifty rupees. It is previously published as the first chapter in Gazeteer of India. 

Then at Abids a book with a bright red cover caught my eye. It was a copy of 'Red Star Over India' by Jan Myrdal. The book is an analysis of the Naxalite movement in India by Jan Myrdal who is a Swedish author, leftist-political writer and columnist according to the bio on the back cover of the book. I bought it for the cover alone.

Further on I found a copy of Diary of a Malayali Madman by N. Prabhakaran Tr. Jayasree Kalathil. I haven't heard about Prabhakaran earlier and was curious to know more about the novel and also the author. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

Then the next find was a most interesting title. Only the previous day I was going through my notebooks while working on a writing project. In a notebook I maintained in 1998 I had read about the National Seminar on Travel Writing that I had attended in March 1998 at the University of Hyderabad. I had gone there to listen to Bill Aitken whose books I had read a couple of months earlier. At this session one of the coordinators was Sachidananda Mohanty, the academic. Incidentally the book I found last Sunday 'Travel Writing and the Empire' ed Sachidananda Mohanty was a product of the proceedings of the seminar. I was surprised to read that the Seminar was held in 1999 when in fact it was in 1998. I don't know how they got it wrong. 

But the most interesting title of the day was the slim copy of 'Life and Learning'  that I spotted with a seller near Bata. on the cover was a shelf of book that caught my attention. It was a textbook meant for the I Year UG Bcom/BCom/BBA  students of Karnatak University according to the blurb on the back cover. It had some wonderful essays and poems. I was quite excited to find it also had an extract from 'Decolonising the Mind' by Ngugi wa Thiong' O that I had been trying to find since a long time. This slim and lovely copy with wonderful print was by Orient Blackswan

The Sunday Haul (on 22-02-2026)

There seems to be some kind of book fatigue settling in inside me of late. After buying a lot of books at Kolkata and Guwahati a couple of weeks ago and many books every Sunday at Abids since the beginning of 2026 I seem to be realizing that I may not be reading all the books I want to read. It was with this sense of fatigue that I set out for Abids last Sunday praying that I would not find any good book to buy. 

Unfortunately, at my first stop at Chikkadpally itself I spotted a title that I wanted to read. It was a nice copy of 'A Book of Memory' by Sudhir Kakar. I had read one of his titles recently and wanted to read this book too so I bought it. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

About six months back I had spotted a collection of short stories by Vijaydhan Detha about whom I had read a couple of months before. But somehow I did not buy it and one reason was that the seller asked for an astronomical sum for it. I was annoyed by his attitude and went away without buying it. Later I regretted it and told myself I would buy it the following Sunday. Unfortunately it was missing that added to my regret. I looked for it every Sunday hoping it would somehow surface again. Surface again did it last Sunday the copy of 'Dohri Zindagi' by Vijaydhan Detha that I grabbed as soon as I spotted it at a seller opposite the GPO. I don't know when I will be able to read it and if I begin reading it I don't know how long it will take me to finish the dozen plus stories in it because I read Hindi very slowly word by word. 

The Sunday Haul (on 15-02-2026)

 

Last Sunday it showed that summer was round the corner as it was warmer than usual in the morning. So I set out for Abids with a water bottle in my bag and a cap on my head. I was not aware that I was going to make some wonderful finds including a title by an author I was searching for since a long time. As usual I started with the seller at Chikkadpally. The first find was a beautiful copy of 'Nation of Fools' by Balraj Khanna that had a stunning cover with a painting on it. I already have a copy of this very funny book that I found a long time ago but it had a different cover. Either way I wouldn't have not bought this beautiful book that I got for eighty rupees. 

Next stop was Abids but before commencing my browsing I sat in Grand Hotel and had a couple of crisp chota samosas and a cup of Irani chai and marveled at my luck finding the copy of 'Nation of Fools' by Balraj Khanna. 

A few minutes later I found a hardcover copy of 'The Case for Reason vol -2: A Scientific Enquiry Into Belief' by Narendra Dabholkar that appeared very interesting. Narendra Dabholkar was shot to death by assailants who found his views on religion hard to digest and so they thought they could stop spreading his views by killing him. What a tragedy it was!

Sometimes it pays to be patient. A long time back I read an article in which Stephen King said that he loved David Goodis' books and though I found many books by authors he had written about I was frustrated that I couldn't find books by David Goodis anywhere. I looked for his novels in the second-hand bookstores in Bengaluru and also here in Hyderabad. I thought I might find them in Kolkata in the stores in College Street. But I was unsuccessful. I searched online but the price was too high. I wanted to find a title by Goodis on my own at Abids and knew it would turn up one day. That day was last Sunday when at last I spotted the name 'David Goodis' on a cover that made my pulse race. 

I saw a copy of 'The Burglar' by David Goodis with a seller where I found quite a few good titles in the past. I picked it up, my hands shaking with an unusual excitement, to look at it closely. It was indeed David Goodis on the cover and the book had all its pages intact except there was a small tear on the top of the front cover. But it did not matter as I felt I had found a rare gem. I got it for just seventy rupees whereas online the price was around thousand rupees. 

With a heart full of joy at finding something I had been searching for long I thought of going home but I continued with the browsing and came to a seller where I found a copy of 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' by Gertrude Stein. While paying I asked the youngster where his dad was since I had not seen him for the past couple of months. When he said his father had died three months back I felt a sense of loss. The boy did not show any sign of sorrow and told me in a casual way that his father died of a heart attack. But I could see that he was struggling not to cry. He told me he was his father's only child, and was in 10+2 and said he would either do a degree or engineering if he got a good rank. I felt very bad for not asking about his father when I did not see him for many weeks. Last I had seen him was at the Hyderabad Book Fair in December. 

The last title I found was a copy of 'Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1933-1945' Saul Friedlander.