The Sunday Haul (on 16-09-2018)

Though I had another interesting five-book haul last Sunday at Abids I wasn’t happy. The reason is that since the past few months I have been bringing in hauls of five-six books on an average and now there are far too many books at home. I don’t think I will be getting enough time to read all the books I’ve bought till now and that is making me a bit depressed because there is nothing I like more than to read. The problem is that when I see books I want to buy those I like and at Abids I find many books I like and end up buying them. Last Sunday again I found five interesting titles.

A long time ago it was quite by chance that I had picked up a Jerzy Kosinski title at Abids unaware of his books. I just picked up ‘Passing By’ on a hunch and later after reading that collection of amazing and bold essays I wanted to read more books by Jerzy Kosinski. Sometime later I found a copy of another title of his- ‘Pinball.’ Last Sunday ‘Passion Play’ by Jerzy Kosinski was the first title I found at Abids. The seller was a greedy fellow who usually asks for outrageous prices but last Sunday I managed to get the book for just thirty rupees.

The second find was an interesting one. I spotted a copy of ‘Let Them Call It Jazz’ by Jean Rhys. It wasn’t even a regular book but something half the size of a book. It turned out to be a collection of three short stories of Jean Rhys: Let Them Call It Jazz; Outside the Machine; and The Insect World. I got this cute book for thirty rupees.

After a long time I came across an Ernest Hemingway title that I don’t have. I saw a copy of ‘Islands in the Stream’ by Ernest Hemingway. It was a fat, thick hardcover copy with a jacket that was torn in places and stuck together with tape. It had the appearance of an old, original copy and that excited me. I looked inside and saw that the publisher was Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. I had no idea if it was a first edition but it was published in 1970. Whatever, I bought it and since the seller was someone who was one of my favourite sellers at Abids I got this 466-page book for fifty rupees only.

A couple of minutes later with another seller I saw another book that looked really old looking at the cover. It was a copy of ‘The Sword and the Sickle’ by Mulk Raj Anand. I was excited about this copy. There was ‘KUTUB’ on the cover and when I looked inside I read that it was published by Kutub Publishers Limited, Bombay in 1955. It was the Indian edition and the original edition was published in 1942 elsewhere. By its appearance I think it is an old copy worth retaining so I bought it for forty rupees.

A long time ago I managed to get hold of a new copy of ‘Travel Writing’ by Don George when I still could not stop dreaming about travelling and writing about it. In it I had come across a list of ‘Travel Literature Classics’ made of twenty titles. Of those twenty titles I managed to find six: ‘Arabia Through the Looking Glass’ by Jonathan Raban; ‘Arabian Sands’ by Wilfred Thesiger; ‘In Patagonia’ by Bruce Chatwin; ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’ by Eric Newby, ‘Venice’ by Jan Morris, and ‘Southern Gates of Arabia’ by Freya Stark. I am constantly on the lookout for the remaining titles though it seems highly unlikely that I would find any title by Patrick Leigh-Fermor whose ‘A Time of Gifts’ is No. 17 on this list. At the bottom of this list, No. 20, is ‘The Worst Journey in the World’ by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. This is the same title I picked up last Sunday at Abids.

Though I had spotted it a few months ago I did not buy it. At that time I wasn’t aware it was in that list of Travel Literature Classics. However, something about that title was nagging me and I looked in my copy of TLC and realized I had made a horrible mistake not buying it. When I began to look for it frantically next Sunday I couldn’t find it and the seller also had no idea about it. I couldn’t see it for the next few Sundays until it turned up again last Sunday. It did not take me more than half a minute to buy it. The icing on the cake is that I got the book for half the price the seller quoted once he realized I was eager to buy it. When I told him I wouldn’t pay more than seventy rupees and began to walk away he accepted my offer. I got the book just like that. But reading this massive tome is going to take longer than it took to buy it. It is nearly six hundred pages of dense print.

The Sunday Haul (on 2-9-18)

I do not seem to be falling short of luck at the Sunday book bazaar in Abids because last Sunday too I ended up with a good haul of six interesting titles.

Only the other Sunday I had picked up a copy of … by Amitabha Bagchi whose latest book- ‘Half the Night is Gone’ is being talked about as one of the finest novels in recent times. I had seen good enough copies of ‘Above Average’ by Amitabha Bagchi at Abids in the past but hadn’t bought it for some reason. But after reading about ‘Half the Night is Gone’ I have decided to read Bagchi’s books and begin from the first book. I have to find ‘The Householder’ now. I got ‘Above Average’ for only fifty rupees.

The next find was a chance find that I picked up after I saw the cover. It was a copy of ‘Headcount’ by Ingrid Noll who, it was on the cover, was considered as ‘Germany’s Queen of Crime’ by Observer. After such high praise I couldn’t resist buying it since I love to read crime fiction and want to find new writers I am not aware of. This title was in another lot of books selling for twenty rupees.

The Sunday before last I had seen a book in tattered condition without the covers at the front and at the back and the spine exposed. However, the title appeared interesting ‘Principles of Literary Critcism’ by I.A. Richards. The seller had asked for a hundred and fifty rupees that put me off. I wasn’t very interested in it because it seemed something very academic. Last Sunday I saw the book again and asked for the price. The seller was the same kid as before but this time he asked for only forty rupees. I decided to take though I am not sure I would find the time and the patience to go through it.

Sometimes you find treasure in the most unexpected places. There’s a pile of uninteresting books in another place in a lane at Abids that sell for twenty rupees. In the past I have found a couple of good titles when I looked carefully. Last Sunday I needn’t look so carefully because one title lying on top of the pile that caught my eye. It was a copy of ‘Ants’ by Gopinath Mohanty, a small and slender book. ‘Ants and Other Stories’ is a collection of nine short stories: Ants; The Somersault; Destiny; Two Heroes; Road Closed; Drowning; House; The Solution; Identity ranslated from the Odia by Sitakant Mahapatra. I looked inside and saw that the book was published in 1979 by Arani International, Kolkata and distributed by Rupa. Arani was a new name I haven’t heard before but the cover was something worth looking at- It was another collectible title that I got for just twenty bucks.

The last title I found at Abids was a copy of ‘The Brass Cupcake’ by John D. MacDonald that I later read online was his first novel. It was another book from the Books n More library that are still littering the pavements in their dozens. This book was in a pile of books selling for twenty rupees along with other titles.

The last find was not in Abids but in Chikkadpally. There was a pile of books stacked one on top of another that I decided to check out. Then I found a nice copy of ‘Voices in the City’ by Anita Desai with a beautiful original cover. It was an Orient Paperbacks edition published by Hind Pocket Books that looked like a collectible item. I got it for only thirty rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 2-9-2018)

Had I known it beforehand that I would be returning home with a haul of six books from Abids maybe I would have hesitated a bit before stepping out in the morning last Sunday. With all my bookshelves filled to overflowing, all available nooks and crannies stuffed with books there isn’t much space for more books yet I keep buying books every week and this is what fills me with dread. However the happiness at finding good titles is more than the dread I feel at thought of finding space to keep them at home.

The first find in the haul was a book I went for because I was drawn to the cover. It was an unusual cover with a black and white photograph of a Japanese family with two kids and their mother (?). I haven’t read many titles by Japanese writers other than those by Haruki Murakami. ‘The Broken Commandment’ by Shimazaki Toson was the first book in the haul and is an English translation of the original novel in Japanese- HAKAI. This is published by the University of Tokyo Press and is accepted in the Japanese Series of the Translations Collections of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). I was surprised to read in the introduction by the translator, Kenneth Strong, that in Japan there was a kind of caste system just like our own wretched one, and there’s a section of people, 'eta', considered ‘untouchable’ in the Japanese society. 'The Broken Commandment' is the story of one person from that section.

Though I already have copies of some titles I keep buying if I come across more copies because I love reading those writers and want to let others too read them. Dave Barry is one writer I’ll always be grateful for making me laugh because I don’t think I laugh much. When I spotted a beautiful copy of ‘Dave Barry Talks Back’ in a pile of books marked ‘Rs 20’ I picked it up. Similarly, when I saw a copy of ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ by John Berendt I bought it though I haven’t yet read the copy I had picked up long back. I got this book for thirty rupees.

The next find was a crime fiction title- ‘The Moody Man’ by John Milne. Though I haven’t read about this writer before, I picked it up because it was a Penguin title. I read almost anything that is published by Penguin. Period. I got this book for just thirty rupees and I hope it turns out to be an enjoyable read.

Sometime back I had picked up a ‘Cal’ by Bernard MacLavery on a hunch and after reading it was so impressed by the writer that I wanted to read all his books. Luckily I found a copy of ‘Lamb’ sometime last year but haven’t read it yet. Last Sunday I came across a beautiful copy ‘The Anatomy School’ by Bernard MacLaverty that turned out to be a British Library discard. Whatever, I am glad I found this title and got it for fifty rupees only.

‘The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta’ by Mario Vargas Llosa was the last find that I picked up in another heap of books selling for twenty rupees. This was another book from the ‘Books N More’ collection that has now turned up at Abids. I wonder why the library folded up and was forced to sell/give away its books.