Secondhand Bookshops – One (this one is online)

In my previous two posts, I have been talking about this online secondhand bookshop where I searched and finally found and received 6 books by John D. MacDonald … 

Ok, let me end the suspense and reveal the name of this online secondhand books site … not that I wanted to keep it secret or something … it is just that I wanted to have a direct buying experience before telling about it to all of you … most of you might have already visited this site … anyway, the name of the site is direct, as one of those hard-boiled gumshoes would have liked … 

www.secondhandbooksindia.com …

I have been visiting this site for the last one month or so in search of books by Simon Brett, Paul Theroux, and others … the hit rate was not great, but was not disappointing and I kept my search on … I like buying 3 to 4 books at a time and wanted to put together a decent number before I bought them …

When Vinod told me about Ross Macdonald, the first thing I did was to check this website … as narrated earlier, instead of ‘Ross,’ I found ‘John D.’ … but I went with ‘John D.’ anyway and after checking online, decided to buy the 5 books featuring the detective Travis McGee and 1 book on John D.’s early mystery stories …

My buying experience was good, the packing was well done, and the books arrived in good condition … I am a satisfied customer … I did a general search for some well-known writers and there are at least a couple of books on each of them … and more books under thrillers and popular fiction … the prices are not very high … but don’t expect Abids street prices … you can get a good book for Rs.75/- … of course, some used books cost more … but again, if you are the type who’d rather sit at home and click books, you have to pay the second-hand bookseller for putting the books together in searchable format for you … and in case you have specific requests, you can always mail and let them know … sort of keeps them on their toes …

The buying process is slightly loopy here … you have to first register, and then ‘deposit’ some money, and then buy books and keep checking as the balance decreases … something like ‘prepaid’ … helps you to maintain your balance!!

So, happy buying then … 

Looking for Ross Macdonald and finding John D. MacDonald ... the first packet of JDM novels arrives – Part 2

Both writers were born one year apart and were contemporaries, and passed away within three years of each other.  In fact, Ross Macdonald, whose real name is Kenneth Millar, experimented with various pseudonyms.

“For his fifth novel, in 1949, he wrote under the name John Macdonald, in order to avoid confusion with his wife, who was achieving her own success writing as Margaret Millar. He then changed his pen name briefly to John Ross Macdonald, before settling on Ross Macdonald, in order to avoid being confused with fellow mystery writer John D. MacDonald, who wrote under his real name.”

So, there is a connection after all … good … now, to move further … is John D. MacDonald a prolific writer? Oh god, yes … ‘prolific’ describes him … around 75 novels and 5 short story collections … awesome, na … (trying to use new lingo!!) … John D. MacDonald too comes under the ‘hardboiled’ mystery writers’ category like Chandler, Hammett, and Ross Macdonald … these are all ‘hard-boiled’ writers … tough cookies, eh … John D. MacDonald too has his own favourite gumshoe, and wrote 21 novels featuring Travis McGee, an “intelligent and introspective” man, with a “hard cynical streak.”  He is a “salvage consultant” and “knight-errant.” “McGee made his living by recovering the loot from thefts and swindles, keeping half to finance his "retirement," which he took in pieces as he went along.” 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._MacDonald)

And ... this is how John D. MacDonald looked like ... 

Ah, yes … it was his novel The Executioners, which was made into the movie Cape Fear, in 1962, with Gregory Peck, and it was remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese …

All these decided me … I went back to the secondhand books site and checked the available titles against the Trevor McGee list … 5 titles … and one collection of John D. MacDonald’s early mystery stories … great … the price ranged from Rs.75 to Rs.90 per title … not bad at all … I tried not to compare the prices with ‘what if I had got these at Abids’ prices … tch tch ... bad habit only ... 

And I received these 6 titles by John D. MacDonald yesterday (24th July 2015).

This is the first in the Travis McGee series ... written in 1964 ... this one is a 1984 reprint ... I am happy and relieved that I got the first one in the series ... 

Darker than Amber is the seventh in the Travis McGee series and was published in 1966 ... and ha ha ha ... can you believe this?  This copy I got is the first edition ... ha ha ha ... 

Published in 1970, The Long Lavender Look is the 12th in the series ... 

This one is the 15th in the series ... and was published in 1973 ... 

Cinnamon Skin was published in 1982 and is the 20th in the Travis McGee series ...

Did you notice something?  Each title has a 'colour' word ... unless you see four or five at a time, you wouldn't notice this ... this colour word, suggested by John MacDonald's publisher was supposed to act like a mnemonic device for the readers “...so that when harried travelers in airports looked to buy a book, they could at once see those MacDonald titles they had not yet read.” 

And The Good Old Stuff is really the icing on the cake as far this collection is concerned for me ... this is like aged malt or something like that ... this book contains 13 stories of his pre-Travis McGee years ... these stories were published between 1947 and 1952 in magazines like Detective Tales, New Detective Magazine, Doc Savage Magazine, Dime Detective, Mystery Book Magazine, and others ... this edition has an introduction by Francis M. Nevins, Jr. and a foreword by John D. MacDonald ... 

I strongly feel I should begin with this good old stuff ...  

Looking for Ross Macdonald and finding John D. MacDonald … both 'hard-boiled' crime fiction writers – Part I

After tea and biscuits (on the same Sunday as in the previous post), as Vinod and I came out of the Irani, Vinod asked me if I had read anything by Ross Macdonald.  This was a new name to me and I said no, I hadn’t.  Vinod then told me that Ross Macdonald was writing around the same time as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and they were considered the ‘holy trinity’ of crime fiction in America.  He told me that Ross Macdonald too had a ‘detective’ of his own called Lew Archer, who was a ‘tough, but humane’ detective.  Vinod says in one of his posts that had had no idea about this writer till he read The Wycherly Woman, which he found in Abids in March this year and then in June he found three more by Ross Macdonald.  And since then he has been hooked.  And he asked me not to miss any book by Ross Macdonald, especially if one has enjoyed reading Chandler and Hammett.  Ross Macdonald also has a similar style in terms of writing sharp dialogues.  So, one more name was added to my list of ‘must-read’ writers.

And though I looked carefully, I didn’t find any Ross Macdonald novels that day at Abids.  Back home, as is the norm, I googled and then Wikipedia-ed 'Ross Macdonald' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Macdonald) and got to know quite a bit about him and his novels.  According to the entry in Wikipedia, “Macdonald has been called the primary heir to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler as the master of American hardboiled mysteries.”  This is how Ross Macdonald looked ...

Fedora and all ... 'private-eye' written all over ... 

mmm … sounds exciting, I thought … I checked online stores and found the prices too heavy for my wallet … I then wondered if that Indian online second-hand bookstore that I have been visiting on and off (with no great success till now), would have any Ross Macdonald books … well, I went there and looked for books by Ross Macdonald and found not a single book … total deflation … I tried ‘Macdonald’ only and that search came up with a number of books by one John D. MacDonald … but the only familiar title among these was ‘Cape Fear’ … I remembered it by the name of the film … same book made into a film?  If so, he must be a well-known and good writer … back to Wikipedia again to check out this ‘MacDonald’ … 

A good Sunday haul at Abids…19 July 2015

Every Sunday, the previous four Sundays, I planned to visit Abids and each Sunday something or the other pushed the trip a week further…

The Abidian siren call I could no longer resist … and this Sunday I set forth …

I missed the bus at 10 and had to wait for another 50 minutes for the next…I thought I’d be late, but I realized when I reached there I was sort of early … the stalls and shelves were just about being arranged with books … Vinod and the others hadn’t yet arrived in the usual pre-hunt hangout … I hung around and browsed some nearby heaps … a text comes from Vinod … we exchange texts and meet at the Irani … he tells me Umashankar and Srikanth won’t be joining the party today … then, Vinod gifts me two books … Manoje Basu’s I Come As a Thief  and Keki Daruwalla’s collection of poems, A Summer of Tigers … I particularly like those old Orient Paperback novels by Indian writers … and this one has a certain charm to it …. Some months back I had found a collection of poems by Adil Jussawala, and Daruwalla’s book is a welcome addition to my collection of Indian English verse … Thanks Vinod! 

Chai and biscuits and conversation later we proceed with hopes held high … I was looking for Len Deighton’s Spy Hook … among other titles … I have read the Game-Set-Match trilogy, the first trilogy in the Bernand Samson tri-trilogy … Hook-Line-Sinker is the second trilogy … I found Line and Sinker separately earlier at Abids … I can’t start the second trilogy without Hook … it’s been some time since I won the Game, Set and Match and it’s been some time also since I have the Line and Sinker … until I have the Hook I can’t fall completely … and then there is the third trilogy … Faith-Hope-Charity ... so, anyway, we went around looking for books … and Vinod espied Faith, just as I had picked up a rather colourful book, Flags of the World, and pointed it out to me …. I was looking for the first in the second, and I found the first in the third …. I picked it up … and we went further, I saw an E. L. Doctorow novel … I had found two Doctorows earlier in Abids and World’s Fair was going to be my third Doctorow at Abids … the more the merrier … I crossed the street and found Charity … what luck! The last in the third!  I need Hook and Hope now … I had four books already and I was feeling happy …

Then we went towards GPO where there were some more sellers … nothing of interest and as we were moving back, Vinod asked me if I had seen The Thirty-Nine Steps … I hadn’t seen it … but he had and he tried to remember the location and we looked carefully at each book spread-out on the pavement … just as Vinod was giving up hope that the book had been claimed, he said eureka and pointed his forefinger at a red and black cover … there it was … The Thirty-Nine Steps …

I paid Rs.20/- each for the 5 books I found … 5 books for 100 rupees … nice, no?