The Book Fair Haul

The only event in Hyderabad I look forward to very eagerly is the Book Fair that is usually held in the month of December. This year is unique since the 31st Hyderabad National Book Fair was held in the month of January, 2018 and the 32nd is being held in the same year. Anyway, I was there on the very first day even before it was officially inaugurated. However, since it was the Vice-President who was inaugurating the fair I had to wait outside for some time before the cops let us in. As soon as I entered I went straight to the second hand book stores from out of town and managed to find two interesting titles on the first day of the Book Fair.

The first title I found was ‘The Opposite House’ by Helen Oyeyemi. I had read about Helen Oyeyemi somewhere and the name rang a bell when I saw it on the cover of a book. The other title I picked up was one I had found recently elsewhere. But I did not want to leave ‘Havanas in Camelot’ by William Styron behind so I picked it up. I did not get them cheap though for I had to pay three hundred and fifty rupees for the two titles.
There were about 350 stalls out of which the second hand book stalls were more than a dozen, almost of all of them Hyderabad based sellers, the ones I see in Abids every Sunday. Sadly there were only two or three from other places. Another disappointing thing was that the collection of second hand titles did not appear to be as good as those in the previous years.

But on the next day, Sunday as it happens, I found some more interesting titles after a careful search. There were huge crowds which was a heartening sight to watch as people went around with several bags filled with books in their hands. This must be the only occasion when one sees so many people who love books at one place. Quite unusually, I couldn’t spot anyone who I see regularly at Abids on Sundays.

I found a nice copy of ‘The Music of Love’ by Dorothy Green which turned out to be a collection of essays on literature. I picked it up since it was a Penguin title and also because the author was an Australian. There are nineteen essays in this collection and I hope to read them one by one leisurely. Then in the same place I found another collection of food writing and this was again by Penguin. The copy of ‘Out to Lunch’ by Paul Levy that I found was in good shape and I picked it up because while leafing through it I found there was a lengthy piece about the author’s visit to India titled ‘India diary’ in it.

When I visited the stall owned by a friendly bookseller at Abids who gives me a free entry pass every year I saw him seated but couldn’t find any title worth buying. I did not want to leave without buying anything from him so I looked all over once again and found a beautiful copy of ‘A Lesson Before Dying’ by Ernst J. Gaines that I bought. I paid him more than what he asked for it and that seemed to make him happy.