Books in 2014 ...

Okay, here is the list of books acquired in 2014 … books were purchased from all kinds of sources – Abids second-hand book market, online stores, brick and mortar stores, book exhibitions, etc. … and in two languages, Kannada & English …

1.    The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories – Ian Rankin

2.   Collected Stories – Raja Rao

3.   Malice – Keigo Higashino

4.   The Legends of Khasak – O. V. Vijayan

5.   The City and the River – Arun Joshi

6.   Carvalho/Men of Mystery: Two Novellas – K. P. Purna Chandra Tejaswi

7.   Ocean to Ocean: A Memoir – Susmit Sen with Sehba Imam

8.   Indian Ocean: A Photographic Journey – Vineet Sharma

9.   Noontide Toll – Romesh Gunesekera

10.  Prisoner of Paradise – Gunesekera, Romesh

11.   The Hungry Ghosts – Selvadurai, Shyam

12.  Decentering Translation Studies: India and beyond – Judy Wakabayashi

13.  Pustaka Sannidhi – T. P. Ashoka

14.  Kathana Preethi – T. P. Ashoka

15.  B. Ramachandra Bhattara Samagra Krithigalu

16.  Aagomme Eegomme – Girish Karnad

17.  Sri Sahitya

18.  Panje Mangesharayara Kruthigalu

19.  Aadaadtha Aayushya – Girish Karnad

20. Hosagannada Kavigalu Mattu Natakakaararu

21.  Hosagannada Kathegararu Hagu Kadambarikararu

22. Hosagannada Saahityada Udayakaala – R. Y. Dharwadkar

23. Kannada Sahitya Vaagvadagalu – Rahamath Tarikere

24. U. R. Ananthamurthy and the Discourse of Modernity – Ganesha U. H.

25. Ghatashraaddha – U. R. Anantha Murthy

26. Endendoo Mugiyada Kathe – U. R. Anantha Murthy

27. Mouni – U. R. Anantha Murthy

28. Akasha Mattu Bekku – U. R. Anantha Murthy

29. Sooryana Kudure – U. R. Anantha Murthy

30. Suragi – U. R. Anantha Murthy

31.  Boiled Beans on Toast – Girish Karnad 

32. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt 

33. The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton

34. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon – Alexander McCall Smith

35. Goodbye to Elsa – Saros Cowasjee

36. Best Music Writing 2007 

37. Morecambe and Wise – their funniest jokes, one-liners and sketches

38. One False Move – Harlan Coben

39. My War with the 20^th Century – Pierre Berton

40. Touch – Elmore Leonard

41.  84 Charring Cross Road – Helene Hanff

42. Farewell, My Lovely – Raymond Chandler

43. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque

44. The English Assassin – Daniel Silva

45. Trying to say Goodbye – Adil Jussawalla

46. Animal Farm – George Orwell 

Four more and it would have been a half-century … but there is always the next year … 

The first Abids books haul in the New Year … and an old Donne anthology …

This post should have been posted before the previous post, but that did not happen … today is the second Sunday since the first Sunday of 2015 when I visited Abids on 4^th January … the visit was less to do with finding and buying books … I wanted to meet Vinod, Umashankar, and Srikanth and greet them on the new year … when I reached Abids at around 11.15 AM, the triumvirate were already there … Vinod called me while I was a little distance away from Abids and told me to come to their favourite chai adda … as I was legging my way towards the Irani café, I was pleasantly surprised to see three of my students browsing books at one of the roadside heaps … Vaishnavi, Sandhya, and Rahul are students in my first year B. Tech. Computer Science branch and a couple of months ago I had told my students about the second-hand books market at Abids on Sundays and practically harangued them to at least visit the place once … and unable to bear my daily reminders some of them did visit Abids subsequently and also purchased some books … since almost all of them are first-time fiction readers I had told them what type of books to look out for and after browsing and buying, they brought the books to college and showed them to me proudly … I was actually deeply touched … and when I saw these three students at Abids on the 4^th, I felt good … I wanted to spend time and search for books with them, but my friends were waiting and I told my students that I would catch up with them later and went on to meet Vinod & Co. 

The table was crowded at the Irani café and I saw that there was another person there with the triumvirate … Umashankar introduced me to him and him to me, saying “Jai, meet Jai” … I forgot to ask his full name … could be Jayashankar … and after the invigorating cup of Irani chai, we set out on our hunt … for a long time I couldn’t find any book that caught my attention … I was also looking around to see if my students are somewhere around … couldn’t see them … during the search, I was able to help another book-seeker to locate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance … I found this book in a Rs. 20 heap inside the building and actually thought of buying it and then put it back … this person was also looking around and asked a bookseller with well-arranged stacks of books in front of him for the Zen book … I heard him and called out to him and pointed out the book to him in the heap … and the other bookseller kind of looked peeved … and the bookseeker was surprised and happy … “wow, only 20 bucks,” he said …

Almost after an hour’s search, I found three books in the Rs. 20 heap right at the start of the lane … two books were by Roddy Doyle … I picked the first book, the snapper, based on the blurb on the back that said, “…exploding with cheerful chauvinism and black Celtic humour…” the second Doyle book was the woman who walked into doors … I didn’t want to leave a Doyle book behind and picked it up … and of course, the blurbs had nice things to say about the book and the author …

The third one was for pure nostalgia … it is a collection of poems by John Donne, a favourite of mine during my UG and PG days … and Prof. M. S. Nagaraja Rao, who introduced Donne to us in Shimoga, made each poem come alive and after 20 years or so, I still remember the way he taught us Donne’s poems and other Metaphysical poems …

As you can see below, termites also seemed to have liked the book and they have left their considerable mark on the pages … the book is also marginised and annotated by the ‘first’ owner of the book, whose name is inscribed on the title page … Chenna Lakshmi Pathi, M. A. Eng. Litt. it proudly states …

The book looks nice and cute with the termite marks and the owner marks and also has a very nice old-book smell … out of curiosity, I checked out the name on Facebook and indeed there was a person with this name currently located in Chennai, and he had studied in Nizam College, here at Hyderabad!!  But I don’t know if it is the same person … and I didn’t want to stretch my curiosity further … if it were alive, one could have asked the cat … 

Waiting eagerly for this book in 2015 … the third in the Ibis Trilogy …

After the first and second novels in this trilogy, I was looking forward to the third novel … book launch forecasts in early 2014 indicated that the third one wouldn’t be out in the year and I was disappointed … it had been quite some since the second novel was launched and devoured and the wait was beginning to become unbearable …

Around four weeks back, a small report with the author’s photo in The Week gave out the good news that the third novel in the trilogy is ready and would be released sometime in mid 2015 … and the name of the novel too was mentioned … aha … I logged on to Amazon.in and typed the name and there it was … no, the book was not for sale, not even pre-order, but you could sign up for an ‘alert’ … a space for your email and a submit button and the amazonians would let you know when the book would be released … so, it is confirmed now that Amitav Ghosh’s third novel in the Ibis Trilogy would be released this year … 

During the days after reading the second novel, River of Smoke, I started this guessing game of the probable names the third novel would have … the first one was called Sea of Poppies … somewhere I was sure that the title would have some reference to ‘water’ … and after ‘Sea’ narrowed down to ‘River,’ I speculated that the title of the third would refer to a further narrowed down waterbody … ‘Lake’ perhaps … ‘Pond’ was too small …  ‘Stream’ may be … or even ‘Waterfall’ …

When I read the title of the third novel, I saw that there sure was a reference to ‘water,’ but not ‘Lake’ or ‘Stream’ or ‘Waterfall,’ but ‘Flood!’ … and there was ‘Fire’ too … the third novel in the Ibis Trilogy is called ‘Flood of Fire’  … and amazon has a picture of the book jacket … I think it is the cover photo of the American edition, and it is a little dry for my liking  … I liked the vibrant jacket designs of the Indian hardback editions of Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke and I hope when the Indian hardback edition of Flood of Fire releases, it would be as beautiful as the book jackets of the first and the second novels … those of you who want to read more about Flood of Fire, you could check out this link … http://www.amazon.in/Flood-Fire-Novel-Ibis-Trilogy/dp/0374174245/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420700315&sr=8-1&keywords=flood+of+fire … but for now, I am waiting with only this photo of the book jacket for company …  

The Deccan Steel Cap Masterpiece – a 2014 year-end model from Deccan Pens, Hyderabad

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2015 ... 

An unscheduled visit to Deccan Pens, Secunderabad branch, to buy some stationery items, yielded a big surprise on the last day of 2014 … and a new pen for the new year…

I was visiting Deccan Pens after a long long time and Zubair was very effusive in his welcome and before I could ask for things I wanted to buy, he asked me if I had seen their latest model and if Wasimbhai at Abids branch had shown me their latest creation … I said no and told him that I had visited their Abids branch a couple of months ago and Wasimbhai hadn’t spoken about a new model … he then took out this fountain pen from inside the steel cupboard and showed it to me … it was their very sturdy and very popular Masterpiece model, and this one was with a steel cap … ‘pure’ stainless steel, Zubair said … the first thing I noticed was the clip … most of the times, the clips on Deccan pens are straightforward … I can remember only the clip on Author being slightly ornamental … the clip on this pen was ever so slightly ornamental at the top and also curves down ending in a kind of teardrop …

I opened the pen and the cap felt very heavy … really heavy … I had my  Deccan brushed Masterpiece in my pocket and when I compared the weights of the caps just by holding each cap in either palm, I could sense the heaviness …

The pen is a green and black combination with steel on the cap adding the ‘steel’ … the pen looks sturdy and the cap is very well done … the green is actually military green and my personal opinion is that steel goes well with green … I had always admired the green steel capped Advocate more than the brown steel capped one, but somehow that Advocate is not in my collection … the black, military green, and steel makes a very pleasing combination for me … and as you can see, the nib is a regular large one found in Deccan Masterpiece fountain pens …

Posting the cap makes it heavy at the barrel end and therefore one has to hold the section more firmly than usual while writing … it would be better to use the pen unposted … and since the pen was inked for testing, I tried writing and as expected, the flow is even and the nib smooth … and Zubair said he has taken the pen out after two weeks and I wrote with it and no starting trouble at all … I have seen this amazing feature myself with my Deccan pens and it is one of the outstanding features of Deccan pens and found in very few Indian ebonite pens … I am pleased that this quality continues in this pen too …

As of now, this is the only piece that was made … a sort of prototype model … and Zubair gave it to me for the time being … here are some pics of this new model circa 2014 …