The Sunday Haul (13.08.2023)

 It was a bountiful haul last Sunday at Abids with four good titles finding home on my bookshelf. The first find was a copy of ‘Dispossession; The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination’ by Edward Said with a seller near the GPO at Abids. It was in good condition and I felt glad I had found a good title. 

 Along with this title I also found a copy of ‘Alone Across the Atlantic’ by Francis Chichester with the same seller who gave me both these titles for just hundred and fifty rupees. I have another title by Francis Chichester that I found a long time ago at Abids but haven’t got around to reading it as it is quite a tome running into several hundred pages. 

A little further away with another seller I found a nice copy of ‘Heaven on Wheels’ by Firdaus Kanga, a title that I had been looking for sometime now. I had read about it and was interested in finding it as it was said to be a travel title. I got it for just seventy rupees. 

But the best haul of the day was not at Abids but at Chikkadpally where I stopped before going home. I almost did not stop since I had already found three good titles and did not want to buy any more books. I am glad I stopped because I spotted a copy of ‘Suttree’ by Cormac McCarthy that made me get down from my bike hurriedly and pick it up. I got this title for just a hundred rupees and boy was I glad because the copy I found was in very good condition. 

The Sunday Haul (on 06-08-2023)

 Last Sunday was a sort of special visit to Abids. Someone who follows me on Twitter messaged me that she would be visiting Abids and asked me to show her around. I was a bit nervous but the lady turned out to be an avid reader like her mother who accompanied her. She bought ten books and I gave her six copies of some of my favorite titles including ‘All About H Hatterr’ by GV Desani, ‘Summer of 42’ by Herman Raucher, a collection of stories by Mavis Gallant, a Dave Barry title. It is for this reason that I buy multiple copies of titles I loved to read. Anyway it all went off well and I was pleased about it all. 

I too picked up four titles on my own. The first title I picked up was a beautiful almost new copy of ‘The News: A User’s Manual’ by Alain de Botton. Over the past weeks and months  I have found Alain de Botton’s ‘How Proust Can Change Your Life’, ‘Essays in Love’, ‘The Art of Travel’, ‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ after reading which I was convinced that de Botton was a wonderful thinker and writer.  

 

Somehow I like reading accounts by individuals who lead interesting lives doing something not many people do or can do. One such title I found last Sunday was ‘The Shepherd’s Life; A Tale of the Lake District’ by James Rebanks that I picked up also because it was a Penguin title. I did not mind paying a hundred and fifty rupees for it. 

Of course any title related to travel does not escape my eye and so when I spotted a nice copy of ‘Without a Guide’ edited by Katherine Govier I picked it up knowing it would be a good title. I wasn’t wrong as the book is a collection of travel pieces by seventeen celebrated women writers like Annie Proulx, Alice Walker, Bapsi Sidhwa, Ann Beattie, Margaret Atwood and also Robyn Davidson whose ‘The Ribbon and the Ragged Square’ I had bought at Bengaluru, and from which book an excerpt is included in ‘Without a Guide’. 

 

I never seem to write good English so I am always trying to improve my writing by learning the basics of writing, grammar, style and so on. Sometime last month or the month before it I had found a nice copy of ‘The King’s English’ by H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler that I plan to read along with Fowler’s ‘Modern English Usage’ that I had got cheap earlier this year.

The Sunday Haul (31-07-2023)

 It did not rain last Sunday, mercifully since it had rained all through the other week. It was cloudy though but no sign of any rain. As usual I rushed to Abids and returned home with three good titles. 

The first find was a nice copy of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by John Boyne that I bought right away. I had come across many copies in the past but none of them were in a good enough condition. So when I found an almost new copy I picked it up for fifty rupees.

 

The second find was at the seller who has copies of new and almost new titles in the piles he displays. I found a nice hard cover copy of ‘The Pleasures of Leisure’ by Robert Dessaix that I got for hundred and fifty rupees. I read that Robert Dessaix was an Australian writer since I had not heard of his name anywhere before. Anyway I was pleased to find this non-fiction title that I have already started reading. 

I found a most interesting title that I seemed to have read about somewhere very recently. I do not know where I read about ‘Christ Stopped at Eboli’ by Carlo Levi but when I read that title on the cover of a tattered looking book I stopped and picked it up. I was pretty excited finding this book that I got for only twenty rupees. Now I want to recollect where it was that I read about this title recently. 

An Online Haul

 This post is the last of the posts in the 16^th or 17^th year of this blog, I am not clear. I began the blog on the 31^stof 2007.  Next week this blog turns 18?

 

I have a thing for short stories. I haven’t read as many as I should have though I have plenty of collections of short stories by many famous names in Indian as well as those in other places. It is as if I am hoarding these short story collections to read some time in the future. I think I began my reading life with short stories and over the years have get to know some really good writers who have written the kind of stories you never forget. I have almost all the titles by Alice Munro, a couple of titles by Lorrie Moore, but I am yet to find anything by Grace Paley save for a short story or two by her that I chanced upon in anthologies. Somewhere I read about ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ by Tille Olsen but haven’t been able to find it anywhere until last week when I got lucky and bagged a copy of ‘Tell Me a Riddle’ by Tille Olsen in a sale on WhatsApp. 

 

I knew that Tille Olsen wrote some really good stories but I did not expect to find ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ in ‘Tell Me a Riddle’ that I received the other day. I was delighted to find this famous and much quoted story in this collection along with three other stories including the title story. The other stories in this slim collection include: Hey Sailor, What Ship?; and O Yes. 

Later when I opened the book to take a better look I was pleasantly surprised it was a New Year gift to a friend in 2000 from someone called Thrity. It set off my imagination and I wondered who Thrity was and who it was she gifted the book to and how it ended with the bookseller from whom I bought it. 

The Sunday Haul (on 16-07-2023)

I was away from Hyderabad and missed the visits to Abids on two Sundays so when I set out for Abids this Sunday I was filled with an eagerness and excitement I feel only when I am around books. 

The first haul at Abids last Sunday was a title that I had seen before the trip to Delhi. I had not picked it up then but when I saw it last Sunday I was glad no one bought it. ‘Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War’ by Frances Harrison is about the killings in Sri Lanka and the aftermath. I got this book for just fifty rupees. After buying this title I walked into the Irani to have a cup of chai while going through the find. I wasn’t surprised to see Danny at a table sipping on his chai as he is also a regular at Abids. So I sat with him and we talked about the books we found, our mutual friends and later went around looking at the books laid out on the pavements. 

 

For some reason I like to read books on psychiatry, psychology that explain why people behave and think the way they do. I am fascinated about such things and so when I saw a copy of ‘On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychottherapy” by Carl R. Rogers with a seller who seems to stock only good titles I bought it.

 

On the same shelf I also saw a nice copy of ‘If I Die in a Combat Zone’ by Tim O’Brien that I immediately picked up as I also have his ‘Things They Carried’ that I haven’t been able to read though I bought the book years ago. I got this title too for a hundred and fifty rupees, the same price I paid for ‘On Becoming a Person’ that was also a brand new copy. 

The Delhi Haul

I was travelling so I couldn’t do the post last Sunday and the previous Sunday. 

 

The previous Sunday I landed in Delhi to attend a training course for a week at NIDM in Rohini. My last visit to Delhi was in 2019 a few months before the Covid lockdown disrupted all travel. So, after four years I was back in Delhi for a week during which I had a few things to do of which the most important thing was to go to the Sunday book market at Mahila Haat on the day I was supposed to leave for home. I hadn’t been to this place since almost four years and I was just eager to check out the books there. 

On Tuesday, the 4^th of July I went along with fellow participants who wanted to shop at Connaught Place. I had planned to check out the books in Anil Book Corner where I had bought a few books on my earlier visits. The place was exactly the same it was though the person who was the owner appeared a little older. I found a copy of ‘Journey into Russia’ by Laurens van der Post and got it for just a hundred rupees. I had found van der Post’s ‘Venture in to the Interior’ at Abids sometime in 2013, and a copy of ‘A Walk with a White Bushman’ in New Delhi in 2018. Though I have read ‘Venture into the Interior’ I am yet to read ‘A Walk…’ 

 

The training course was over on Friday and in the evening I came to CR Park to stay with my brother. From Monday to Friday the weather was awful in Delhi with high humidity making one sweat. But the weather forecast showed that it would rain heavily on Saturday and Sunday dampening my moods. I went out on Saturday and bought a copy of ‘A Whole Life’ by Robert Seethaler that I wanted to gift to my ex-boss who I was visiting later in the day. It had been raining quite heavily a few minutes after I left Mohan Singh Place where I had gone to have a cup of coffee at the India Coffee House outlet on the second floor. I picked up the book and went to my ex-boss’s place and gave the book to her. I already have a copy of the same title at home and had found it to be a wonderfully written short novella. 

 

On Sunday too it was cloudy and rained in the morning until about half past ten. There was a pause in the rain and I decided to go to Mahila Haat whatever. Luckily for me it did not rain all the time I was there. There was ankle deep water in the place and the sellers were just putting up their books on the stone platforms with plastic sheets above to prevent the books from getting wet from the rain. A few minutes after reaching the place I found a wonderful book- ‘A Rumor of War’ by Philip Caputo that I just knew was a fantastic find after I saw the one word blurb ‘Classic’ by Guardian on the cover. 

 

Another find was a copy of a slim book- ‘Foe’ by J.M. Coetzee that I got for a hundred rupees. I love Coetzee’s writing and picked this title hoping it would be as good as his other titles especially ‘Disgrace’ that I had read some time ago.

 

Another find in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees was a nice copy of ‘The Girl from Nongrim Hills’ by Ankush Saikia. I had read his ‘Jet City Woman’ a long time back, and also ‘More Bodies will Fall’ recently and enjoyed his writing. Though I know he also lives in CR Park I was hesitant to contact him as I am a bit shy by nature and did not want to disturb the writer. 

 

Just as I thought I had bought enough books and planned to leave it began to rain lightly and hurried home just in time for a sumptuous lunch of mutton curry and bagara rice that my mother had cooked for us. I was pleased that I could see my mother after nearly six months, bought books at the Mahila Haat on Sunday, got a pair of jeans stitched at Mohan Singh Place, and also meet my ex-boss.

An Online Haul

 Of late my interest has veered towards accounts, by journalists especially, about disputed places or countries where things are still unsettled. While looking at some titles put on sale by a seller on his WhatsApp group I spotted a nice copy of ‘The Gun and the Olive Branch’ by David Hirst. As soon as I saw the cover I felt that it was something special so I put in my claim and luckily enough no one claimed it and I got it. It took more than a week to reach me.

‘The Gun and the Olive Branch’ is about the conflict in the Middle East, especially, as it says on the cover about ‘the roots of the violence in the Middle East’, an area in turmoil since a long time. Though I read about it in the papers I never tried to know the background of this violence and now that I have this title I hope to get a better understanding. David Hirst was the Middle East correspondent of The Guardian newspaper and wrote this book sometime in the seventies. I am very glad that I have this book on my shelf, and am looking forward to reading it soon along with other books on the Middle East. 

The Sunday Haul (on 18-06-2023)

 With the monsoon playing truant it appeared like the summer would go on for another few weeks here in Telangana. It was uncomfortably warm last Sunday as I set out for Abids in the morning. Unlike the previous Sunday when I came home with five titles last Sunday I managed to haul just two titles, both of them about things I love- travel and reading. 

The first title I found was at Abids and it was a nice copy ‘The Librarian’ by Salley Vickers that I picked up for more than one reason. The main reason was that it was about books and reading, and the other reason was that it was a Penguin title, and the third reason was the blurbs on the cover would make anyone buy it right away. I got this wonderful title for just fifty rupees. 

 

The second find was with a seller at Chikkadpally on the way home. I found a copy of ‘Biografi: A Traveler’s Tale’ by Lloyd Jones that was, needless to say, a travel title. It was about Albania, a country not much written about by travel writers. I did not notice it when I picked up the book but sometime in the evening at home when I took out the two books I bought for a close look I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was an author signed copy. 

The Sunday Haul (on 11-06-2023)

 Last Sunday it was another haul of five wonderful titles at the Abids second hand book bazaar that I’ve been going to since more than three decades. The first title I found was one that I missed buying a long time ago when I first saw it. It was a copy of ‘Consider the Lobster and Other Essays’ by David Foster Wallace that I saw on the top of a pile of books with a seller who sells his titles cheap. So I got this title for just fifty rupees.  

‘Consider the Lobster’ has the following ten essays including the title essay: Big Red Sun; Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Have to Think; Some Remarks on Kafka’s Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed; Authority and American Usage; The View from Mrs.Thompson’s; How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart; Up, Simba; Consider the Lobster; Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky; and Host. 

 

Just below the first find was a copy of ‘Bend Sinister’ by Vladimir Nabokov that had a beautiful cover and I got this title too for just fifty rupees. It was a good start to the book hunt at Abids. 

 

In another pile with the same seller I saw a copy of ‘Forget Kathmandu’ by Manjushree Thapa, a journalist whose columns I have read in the past, I guess, in India Today. I got this title too for only fifty rupees. I couldn’t believe that I got three wonderful titles for less than two hundred rupees. 

 

The previous Sunday I had seen a nice hardcover copy of ‘The Love of a Good Woman’ by Alice Munro that I did not buy though I desperately wanted it. The seller asked for a too high price and knowing him and his attitude I did not want to bargain for it so I walked away hoping I would be able to find it the next Sunday. Luckily for me last Sunday I was glad to see it was still unsold and got it for just two hundred rupees. 

 

‘The Love of a Good Woman’ has these eight stories: The Love of a Good Woman; Jakarta; Cortes Island; Save the Reaper; The Children Stay; Rich as Stink; Before the Change; and My Mother’s Dream. I do not remember reading these stories in other collections of Alice Munro that I have. 

 

In another random heap of books selling for only fifty rupees that another seller near the Bata showroom had I spotted a copy of ‘The Color of Blood’ by Brian Moore. It was written on the cover that it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was published by Paladin and naturally it roused my curiosity. After reading the blurbs from The Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, and The Observer I did not need much convincing to buy this thriller. 

The Sunday Haul (On 04-06-2023)

 

Last Sunday at Abids I made a big mistake missing buying a wonderful title because of a foolish decision. But before I write about it here’s what I found at Abids last Sunday. 

 

I saw a nice copy of ‘Narendranath Mitra- Selected Short Stories’ compiled and translated by Amitava Ray. It was a Sahitya Akademi publication that I picked up without a second thought. I had never heard of Narendranath Mitra so I was very curious who he was. I was astonished to read the blurb on the back cover which said that Narendranath Mitra is the author of about thirty-five novels and five hundred stories in Bengali. He achieved fame after his first novel ‘Haribangsha’ was serialized in Desh in 1942-43. 

 

There are eleven stories in this title all translated by Amitava Ray. I got this book for just fifty rupees. I would have come home with two books but for the mistake I made. I had seen a nice hardcover copy of ‘The Love of a Good Woman’ by Alice Munro, one of my favorite writers. I wanted to buy it but the seller quoted a price that I thought was too high so I walked away without buying it. I did not continue the conversation as the seller seemed too intent on checking his mobile phone and did not appear interested to make the sale. Later I thought I should have bought it at the price he asked for. I really hope to find it next Sunday.