‘A Random Haul’

A couple of years ago I had found ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield at Abids. I had read it then and reread it just a few weeks ago. In this rereading of the book I came across the fact that Steven Pressfield had written a book called ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ that was also made into a movie. One Sunday sometime last month I found a copy of this book. The most interesting thing about it was that I bought the book for just ten rupees. However I do not remember why I forgot to post about finding this book.

Sometime last month I had dropped in at ‘Akshara Bookstore’ in Jubilee Hills not very far from where I work. It was late afternoon when I went there with the plan to check out the shelves for old books. Quite a few times I had found some really good titles that I got cheap. It is one of the best independent bookstores in Hyderabad and it has been around for more than two and half decades. It has changed quite a few locations and I’ve followed the store all through because it stocks the very best titles.

This visit too I checked out the shelf where some old titles are kept and spotted a slim book with the title ‘borneo and the poet’ by Redmond o’hanlon on the spine. It was a Penguin 70s edition and I was filled with excitement holding the book. A long time back I had managed to get a copy of ‘Travel Writing’ by Don George that my brother in the US bought for me. In it I found a list of Travel Classics by US writers and in that list was ‘In Heart of Borneo’ by Redmond O’hanlon that was one of the few titles in that list I could not find so far. Also in the list were twenty other titles out of which I managed to find more than ten titles over the years. However it was not the same book but this small book was an extract from that book. Another interesting thing was that the poet mentioned in the title was James Fenton whose ‘All the Wrong Places’ I had found a couple of months ago. Of course I read ‘borneo and the poet’ right away after getting home. I paid just thirty rupees for this title.

I am so besotted by Africa that I will not miss anything about Africa especially travelogues. I have an impressive list of such titles like ‘Dark Star Safari’ by Paul Theroux, ‘The Africans’ by David Lamb, ‘The Emperor of Emperors’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski, to name a few.

 On Tuesday I dropped in at the Best Books store in Abids to check out the books and also because I hadn’t found any title at Abids on Sunday. I saw a copy of ‘Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa’s Fighting Spirit’ by Tim Butcher on the shelf and checked out the blurbs. It seemed like a good book going by what the other writers said about it. However, Tim Butcher’s other title ‘Blood River’ seemed a better book but ‘Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa’s Fighting Spirit’ was the title I found so I decided to buy it. I got it for almost three hundred rupees.