The Sunday Haul (on 07-04-2024)

 With Eid just days away some of the second-hand book sellers of Abids shifted their books to other places at Abids last Sunday too. Also it was pretty hot with the temperature somewhere around 40 degrees C but I had a cap on my head so I was prepared for it. The previous Sunday I had seen a copy of ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ alongside the copy of ‘The Arabian Tales’ that I picked up leaving the copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales for this Sunday if it was available. It was the first thing I checked and luckily the copy was still where it was the previous Sunday. This was also a Barnes & Noble Classics like the copy of ‘The Arabian Tales’ that I had bought last Sunday. 

My next find was a copy of ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ by Francis Fukuyama. I had heard of Francis Fukuyama but was not aware that he had written a book. When I saw that it was a Penguin title I picked it up feeling glad that I had found a good title to read. I got it for fifty rupees.

With the same seller was a copy of ‘The Best American Short Stories- 2006’ edited by Ann Patchett that I hesitated to buy because I thought I had a copy of it already. But on second thoughts I picked it up and later after I got home I checked my shelves and discovered that I have a copy of ‘The Best American Short Stories- 2007’ edited by Stephen King. However i hadn’t read it so I plan to read these two titles one after the other.

The Sunday Haul (on 31.03.2024)

 It had been my wish to read ‘The Arabian Nights’ and last year this wish came true when I found a copy of ‘The Arabian Nights’ that was a sort of abridged version that didn’t make me feel like I have really read the original ‘Arabian Nights’. Last Sunday I spotted a nice copy of ‘The Arabian Nights’ that was a Barnes & Noble Classics copy that was 662 pages long and felt like a brick. I was overjoyed at finding this copy with a beautiful cover that I got for two hundred rupees after a bit of haggling. There was a copy of ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ also beside it that was also a Barnes & Noble edition and looked like a twin of the copy of ‘The Arabian Nights’. I will buy it next Sunday if it is available.

 After buying this hefty book I thought I wouldn’t be tempted to buy any other title but when I spotted a nice copy of ‘Tibetan Foothold’ by Dervla Murphy in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees. I already have a copy but I bought it anyway because I was getting it for fifty rupees only and besides, I can give it to someone who might be interested in reading it. 

 

Then I spotted a beautiful and almost new copy of ‘The Elements of Style’ by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White, the timeless classic. At first I resisted the urge to buy it and walked away but when the seller shouted after me that he would give it to me for fifty rupees I wilted and ended up buying it. 

 

Of course, it was pretty hot on Sunday with the temperature somewhere around 40 degrees C but habit being habit I had to come to Abids. I’ve no regrets because I went home feeling a quiet joy inside at finding three good books. 

The Sunday Haul (on 24.03.2024)

 It is the month of Ramzan which means all shops that usually close on Sundays are open for the festival shoppers which in turn means that the second-hand book sellers at Abids shift away to other places. Though not at their usual places they are all present at Abids. As is my habit I was there last Sunday too, and there was a special reason to go early since I had to meet my friend Jai who I had not met for a long time. 

 

The first title I found was a copy of ‘Caste, Society and Politics in India: From the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age’ by Susan Bayly that I got for a hundred rupees. It is another addition to my collection of books on various issues including caste in India. Later when I met Jay for chai he told me Susan Bayly’s title was quite well known in the academic circles. We talked about books, politics, and what books we’ve read since the last time we met. 

 

Later with a seller beside the Irani café I spotted a copy of ‘Borneo, Celebes, Aru’ by Alfred Russel Wallace, Sl No. 12 of Penguin Great Journeys series, and is an extract from ‘The Malay Archipelago’ by Wallace. I have a few titles of this series including ‘Snakes with Wings and Gold-digging Ants’ by Herodotus and ‘The Cobra’s Heart’ by Ryszard Kapuscinski. I got this book for hundred rupees.

 

Two years back, in 2022, I had found a copy of ‘The Visiting Moon’ by Susan Visvanathan and had also read it soon afterwards. I was not so impressed with it. Last Sunday in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees I found a copy of ‘Something Barely Remembered’ by Susan Visvanathan that I bought since it was also a hardcover copy and I thought it could be better than ‘The Visiting Moon’. 

The Sunday Haul (on 17-03-2024)

 Until recently I had no idea at all about Brendan Behan. It was on Twitter that I first read about this Irish writer and his fame. Last Sunday at Abids I found a copy of ‘Brendan Behan’s Island- an Irish Sketch Book’ that had illustrations by Paul Hogarth that seemed to me a good find. 

 

A major portion of the titles that I have on my shelves are Penguin titles. Sometimes I think i blindly buy anything published by Penguin and it was in that same belief that I picked up a nice copy of ‘The Discovery of Heaven’ by Harry Mulisch. After I read the blurbs on the back cover and the inside pages (one by John Updike in New Yorker) by such publications like The Times Literary Supplement, New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books, and Kirkus Reviews. I was glad I had discovered another wonderful writer I had not known until then. I am quite eager to begin reading but I am hesitant because it runs into 727 pages. I got it for hundred and twenty rupees. 

I’ve never read anything by Simone de Beauvoir except for the occasional essay somewhere because I have never come across any title by her. At Abids last Sunday I found a copy of ‘All Said and Done’ by Simone de Beauvoir, the third volume of her autobiography. I’m in a bind whether to begin reading it or wait until I find the first two volumes which looks quite impossible. On the other hand there is strong temptation to read it since flipping through the book I noticed that there is an entire chapter on what she reads. 

The Sunday Haul (on 10-03-2024)

 The previous Sunday in fact I had not picked up a title that I already have two copies of but later after I got home I realized that I should have bought it if only to give it to someone. It was a copy of ‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’ by Lajos Egri which is one of the best books on writing that I’ve read, and I am not saying it lightly because I have read nearly two hundred books on writing. Last Sunday I was relieved to find the copy and picked it up and the seller told me to give him whatever I thought the book was worth. So I gave him a hundred rupees.

The next find was also a title that I have numerous copies of and which I like to give to people who tell me they love books. It was a copy of ‘84 Charing Cross Road’ by Helene Hanff with an entirely different cover from the ones I have. I got this lovely book for eighty rupees only.

 

Ayn Rand is one writer I struggled to read. Somehow I couldn’t finish any of her books that I read. But this title by Ayn Rand that I found last Sunday at Abids I intend to read. It was a nice copy of ‘The Art of Nonfiction’ by Ayn Rand that I spotted with a seller. He also told me to pay him whatever I thought fit so I paid him hundred rupees for it.

 

This title too I had spotted last Sunday but this was at Chikkadpally, and since I had bought five books already I told the seller to keep it aside for me. It was a copy of ‘Jurgen Habermas: Critic in the Public Sphere’ by Robert C. Holub that I got for hundred rupees. I had read about Habermas only recently and finding this title was a pleasant coincidence.

 

A little more than two years ago I found a copy of ‘The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East’ by Robert Fisk that I realized was a wonderful book by a great journalist. However, I haven’t yet read since I kept it aside to read along with a few other books on the Middle East. Last Sunday at a seller in Chikkadpally just before I picked up the Habermas book I spotted another Robert Fisk title. It was a nice copy of ‘The Age of the Warrior- Selected Writings’ by Robert Fisk that I immediately grabbed. 

The Sunday Haul (on 03-03-2024)

 Missing three Sundays of browsing at the second hand book market of Abids made me so desperate to be back in Hyderabad that I couldn’t wait for it to be Sunday since the day I returned from Ooty last Tuesday. After four agonizing days it was finally Sunday and I rushed off after breakfast. Returning from a much cooler Ooty I felt it was uncomfortably hot on Sunday morning at Abids. However, it did not really bother me because I was fixed on the titles displayed on the pavements.

 

The first title that caught my eye was a hardcover copy of ‘A Saga of South Kamrup’ by Indira Goswami that had a tattered and torn cover that did not prevent me from buying it. It was a novel and I was glad I found this title by an acclaimed writer. A long time back I had found a collection of short stories by Indira Goswami that, I regret to say, I haven’t yet found the time to read.

In a heap of books selling for only fifty rupees I spotted a new title by an author I haven’t read about before and who I read on the back cover was an acclaimed South African writer with many other artistic talents. It was a copy of ‘The Textures of Silence’ by Gordon Vorster that I picked up. 

Next find was a title I read about in a book my son picked up a couple of weeks ago when he came along with me to Abids. I read about ‘Stumbling on Happiness’ by Daniel Gilbert in ‘Tools of Titans’ by Tim Ferris, and luckily I recollected having read about it when I actually spotted it at Abids last Sunday. 

 

When I found a copy of ‘Flights’ by Olga Tokarczuk at Abids a couple of months ago I felt ecstatic about finding a title everyone seemed to praise to the skies. Incidentally it was a Fitzcarraldo edition that I found. However, last Sunday at Chikkadpally where I stopped to take a look at the books with a seller, I spotted another copy of ‘Flights’ by Olga Tokarczuk with a different cover and published by Riverhead Books. Though I already had this title I picked up this copy too. 

 

The last find was with the same seller. I managed to spot this title at the last minute just when I decided to leave. It was a copy of ‘Up & Down & Around; A Publisher Recollects the Time of His Life’ by Cass Canfield. I had never heard of the name Cass Canfield, and since my interest extend to reading memoirs of editors and publishers too I felt it would be an interesting read so I picked it up. 

The Ooty Haul

The past two weeks I was at Ooty on work and therefore could not go to Abids. I missed Abids very badly and it was pure agony for the two Sundays I was at Ooty. This is my eleventh and last visit to Ooty about which I will write in another post. Since I would be at Ooty for two long weeks I took along three books to read one of which was ‘The Snow Leopard’ by Peter Matthiessen that I am reading for the fourth or fifth time since I last bought it almost two decades ago. 

 

Though I had three books to read I was longing for something else to read and it so happened that I came across a Tweet about ‘The Cooking of Books’ by Ramachandra Guha that I had earlier planned to buy sometime in the future. Somehow I felt a desperate need to read it and I was disappointed not to find it at the Higgin Bothams store in Ooty, and they told me that it would take a week for them to get it if I want it. Not wanting to wait so long I placed an order for it on Amazon and five days later I got it. However I did not read it right away since I planned to read it on the twenty hour long train journey from Coimbatore to Hyderabad.

 

As planned I finished reading it by the time the train reached Hyderabad. I got to know more about Rukun Advani than Ramachandra Guha after I read it. I will read it once again after sometime and want to do a slow read. 

The Sunday Haul (on 04-02-2024)

 

It’s just beginning to get a bit warm during the day in Hyderabad which means summer is just around the corner. It wasn’t hot enough to need a cap but next Sunday I might need it when I am at Abids. Last Sunday though it was sunny it wasn’t hot and I got around and found these four books. 

Of late I am tilting towards non-fiction titles especially journalistic accounts of places where there is conflict like the Middle East. One such title I came across at Abids last Sunday was one that I picked up immediately. It was a nice copy of ‘My House in Damascus; An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution’ by Diana Darke.

 

I am travelling by later this month and thought I’d read some crime fiction during the long journey. I was unable to decide which title to take out of the many I had on my shelf and so when I spotted a copy of ‘The Quiller Memorandum’ by Adam Hall that was also made into a movie as mentioned on the cover I decided it would be this book I would take with me to read. I got this title for just twenty rupees. 

 

The other Sunday I had found a wonderful title at Abids- ‘A Writer at War’ by Vassily Grosman that was about the fighting in Russia in the Second World War that I am yet to read. Last Sunday at Abids I found another title set in Russia- ‘Ten Days that Shook the World’ by John Reed that was about the Russian Revolution that I found at Chikkadpally. 

 

At Chikkadpally again with the same seller I found a copy of ‘Secrets’ by Nuruddin Farah about whom I had read about somewhere recently. It was a Penguin title so I picked it up without much hesitation. This was also the first title by a Somalian writer that I found. 

The Sunday Haul (on 28-01-2024)

 After getting the news that the Hyderabad National Book Fair will be from February 9-19, 2024 I thought I would not buy books at Abids and instead pick up books at the Book fair that is just ten days away. However once I reached Abids last Sunday I couldn’t help picking up four titles, all good ones. 

The first title I picked up was an old copy of ‘Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People’ by Fritjof Capra that I got for a hundred rupees. I don’t know if and when I will read it but I felt I had to buy it. I am going to Ooty again on a two-week trip and thinking of taking this book along to read. 

Another find was a hardcover copy of ‘An Unfinished Journey’ by Shiva Naipaul, a collection of six essays. Inside I saw the stamp of ‘Institute of Defence Management- MESS Library’ and wondered who decided to discard it. One of the six essays in it titled ‘My Brother and I’ is about his famous brother V.S. Naipaul. He writes of the absence of his brother in his life, and also about his own development as a writer.  I remember buying a copy of his novel 'Fireflies' long back but I do not remember if I had read it!

 

A year ago perhaps I had found a wonderful copy of ‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis that I had read about in several places. I thought I was lucky to find it, and had also read it and found it to be a wonderful book. Last Sunday I came across another copy of the same title but with a different cover that at first I did not want to pick up since I already had a copy. But I couldn’t leave it behind and so picked it up.

 

When I want to know more about something current or something I am intrigued by I always try to learn the basic facts from sources that put it across in a simple way. Ever since the flare up of the conflict in Palestine I wanted to know the background facts. I found a copy of  ‘The Arab-Israeli Issue’ by Paul Harper, a hardcover title not more than eighty pages in which I learnt about how it all began. It was a discarded copy from the Seattle Public Library that I got for fifty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 21-01-2024)

 It wasn’t a normal Sunday as I sort of reversed my usual Sunday routine. Instead of going to Abids in the morning I went instead in the afternoon as I had to go somewhere in the morning. Going to Abids in the mornings felt a bit odd but apart from the time everything else was the same. Of course, the afternoon crowd is a bit different from the morning crowd at Abids which in my opinion, is made of the serious book types like yours truly. It is so because all week along we are impatient to come to Abids and grab as many good titles as one can find well before anyone else grabs them. 

Anyway, coming in the afternoon in no way changed my luck at finding good titles because I spotted a nice copy of ‘A Writer at War- with the Red Army 1941-45’ by Vasily Grossman. I Though I haven’t read much about Vasily Grossman the name stuck in mind and when I spotted this title I picked it up. I got it for a hundred and fifty rupees.  

 

Though I am not riding a two-wheeler after my accident in October which would have made it easier for me to stop at Chikkadpally after visiting Abids first, I am getting down at the Chikkadpally bus stop to check the titles that the three sellers there display on the pavement. At one of the sellers I spotted a copy of ‘Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain’ by Maryanne Wolf that I thought would be interesting to read. I got it for a hundred rupees.