The Sunday Haul (on 30-09-2018)

This is the last Sunday before the festival season begins when the second hand book market would be at its full form with all sellers at their usual places. It was so when I went there last Sunday and returned with a haul of four good titles. I had picked up another title, a Telugu one about which I will write some other time. It was a copy of a book published sometime in the 1940s and it an interesting title. I need some time to go through this book before writing about it.

The first title I spotted at Abids was a book, a short one, with an attractive cover. It was a copy of ‘The City of Ladies’ by Christine de Pizan. A Penguin title it appeared like an interesting book so I picked it up. It had only 122 pages and I quickly read it but was disappointed that it wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.

A little ahead I found an issue of ‘The Journal of Indian Writing in English’ edited by GS Balarama Gupta- A Tribute to Ahmed Ali. I had no idea who Ahmed Ali was but if an entire issue was devoted to him then he must be someone worth reading about. I thought maybe I would find another writer worth reading. Inside I read about Ahmed Ali and his famous novel ‘Twilight in Delhi’ that I thought I had come across sometime in the past. I am confident I will find this title if not at Abids, then at some second hand book store in Hyderabad. I got this issue of JIWE ( as it is referred by the editor in the inside pages) for twenty rupees only. I found the Telugu title with this seller and I got it for twenty rupees. It was a copy of ‘Gita Govindam’ in Telugu.

The next find was a cookbook. It was a beautiful copy of ‘The Art of Indian Cuisine’ by Rocky Mohan, a hardcover book with a beautiful cover. A Roli Books title it was a wonderful book with glossy paper and beautiful photographs of the dishes. The most interesting part was that it was a copy signed by Rocky Mohan. I got this book for hundred rupees. I spotted another copy of the same book with another seller but I did not pick it up though now I feel I should have.

The last find was the best find at Abids. I spotted a hardcover book with a seller near the General Post Office. There was no title on the cover and so I opened it to see that it was ‘Bright Book of Life’ by Alfred Kazin. I was pretty excited to find it. Later when I read the first essay which was on TS Eliot in which a few lines from his poem ‘East Coker’ were also given, I realized that I had read the same in the morning. Vaishna Roy in her lead essay titled ‘The Conscience of a Blackened Street’ in The Hindu’s Literary Review of last Sunday had also reproduced the same lines at the end of the column.

Though the seller asked for a hundred and twenty rupees for the copy of ‘Bright Book of Life’ I pointed out the pages that were stained and had holes and managed to get it for fifty rupees.