I was in Bengaluru last week and so missed going to Abids but did not miss buying books. I bought more than a dozen books in the bookstores on Church Street during my four day stay there. I had gone to attend the Bengaluru Lit Fest on 6-7 of this month. I reached on Friday and the first thing I did was drop my bags at a hotel, get ready and go to Blossoms first thing. The first book I found was a copy of ‘Penguin special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane’ by Jeremy Lewis that I got for two hundred rupees. By then it was time for lunch that I had at Paakashaala and on the way back dropped in at Select in another lane. Here I did not find anything but asked if they had a copy of a book they had published on one their anniversaries. The owner was kind enough to give it to me for free saying they did not charge for it. I was grateful and just to make things even bought a copy of ‘The Elements of Style’ by Strunk & White. I have almost half a dozen copies of this title.
After coffee at India Coffee House I moved on to Book Worm. In the Antique and Rare Books store within store I found two titles I had read about long back in the ‘Endpaper’ column of Pradeep Sebastian, India’s foremost bibliophile. I found a beautiful copy of ‘Among the Gently Mad’ by Nicholas Basbanes and also a nice almost new copy of ‘Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World’ by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone. They did not come cheap though. I had to pay a lot to get hold of these two titles but I think for a bibliophile like me these two books are worth it.
Back at the Blossoms again an hour later I was browsing the Indian writing titles on the shelves when I found two title among the titles there. I was surprised how the copies of non-fiction titles found a place in the fiction shelves. One title was a copy of ‘Peace and Its Discontents’ by Edward Said and the other was a nice copy of ‘Covering Islam’ also by Edward Said. I hadn’t expected to find these two titles and so was quite pleased I found them without any effort.
On Monday, the last day of my stay at Bengaluru I dropped in at Blossoms again, at their second store. Here I found a copy of ‘Inside the Treasure House’ A Time in Tibet’ by Catriona Bass. Though it had ‘Abacus Travel’ on the top of the cover I noticed at the back that it was published by Rupa. Anyway, since I had never heard of this book and since it looked like something I might like I took it.
Another title I found there was a nice copy of ‘Distant Neighbours’ by Kuldip Nayar, a book about India and Pakistan issues. I had always wanted to read Kuldip Nayar’s books since he is a well-regarded journalist. I had earlier found copies of his ‘Between the Lines’ and also ‘Scoop’ at Abids.
Then I went to Bookworm again and after a long search for interesting titles I found a copy of ‘A Short History of the Middle East’ by Gordon Kerr, a title to add to my growing collection of books on the Middle East. This was a slim book and looked like I could finish it in a couple of hours’ reading.
At the Bangalore Lit Fest on the first day I picked up a copy of ‘This Divided Island’ by Samanth Subramanian. I had earlier read his other book ‘Following Fish’ and had liked the way he wrote. Since this title was about the Sri Lankan war I wanted to read it as I had earlier read Anita Pratap’s book on the war in Sri Lanka.
On one of the visits to Blossoms on Saturday evening I picked up a copy of ‘Money for Old Rope’ Disorderly Compositions’ by Charles Glass that had a blurb by Christopher Hitchens on the cover. The copy appeared almost brand new and also the author, a journalist, seemed to have covered the Middle East I was immediately drawn to it and bought it.
So, that was a big haul of more than a dozen books at Bengaluru. In another ten days the Hyderabad Book Fair will open and I do not know how many books I will find there. 2025 is going to be a year of record haul of books.
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