It had rained heavily on Friday night here in Hyderabad and going by the clouds it looked like it would rain on Sunday too. Call me selfish or whatever but I did not want it to rain on Sunday at least until the afternoon because it would mess up my Abids book hunt. Luckily though it was cloudy it did not rain in the morning on Sunday, and I was also lucky enough to find some good titles in the haul.
I began to read books when I was not yet in high school and that was sometime in the mid-seventies. One of the first books I had read was ‘The Guide’ by RK Narayan that I found on the shelves of an uncle who was an English lecturer. Until last Sunday I did not have a good copy of the book with me. Last Sunday I came across a book that simply had ‘The Guide’ by RK Narayan on the faded hardcover. When I picked it up for a closer book the back cover detached itself and remained on the ground. When I looked at the inside pages I was excited to find that it was a 1958 edition published by Methuen… Seeing the condition of the cover I wouldn’t have bought it. But when I looked at the type face I couldn’t resist buying it.
The previous Sunday I had seen a nice hardcover copy of ‘In Other Words’ by Jhumpa Lahiri that I did not buy. The seller had asked for such a steep price I thought it was not worth buying it at that price. It was the English translation of the book that Jhumpa Lahri wrote in Italian. I love to read such books about how someone did something interesting and also difficult. However, later after I got home I regretted not buying it and hoped I would find it this Sunday. Luckily for me no one had bought it and I took it along with two other wonderful titles I found with the same seller.
One of the titles was ‘High Five: An Anthology of Fiction from Ten Years of High Five’ edited by Megan Sexton. This is a collection of nineteen short stories published in ‘High Five’ literary journal over a period of ten years. The stories are divided into three categories- Self, Family, and Other. I could recognize only a few names I had read before: Ha Jin, Peter Ho Davies, Leslie Epstein, Alice Hoffman, Robert Olen Butler, Madison Smartt Bell, and Ann Beattie.
The third title was a nice, small book that I nearly missed since it was partly hidden by another larger book. It was a copy of ‘Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual’ by Michael Pollan. There are sixty four rules of eating in all, divided into three parts: What should I Eat, What kind of Food Should I Eat?, and How Should I Eat? The rules are very interesting and one rule (Rule No. 11) that I found to be pertinent was ‘Avoid Foods advertised on Television.’ I got these three books for three hundred rupees.
The last find was a nice copy of ‘Indian Country’ by Peter Matthiessen. I haven’t come across any title by Matthiessen except ‘The Snow Leopard’ and finding this title was like finding a treasure. I got it for just sixty rupees.
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