Three books of three favourite authors ... Abids on 22 July 2018

Abids on Sunday the 22^nd of July 2018 was nice and cool.  This was a postponed visit actually.  I had arranged to meet Susheel at Abids the previous Sunday, but the two ladies at home had made some other plan.  I didn’t know their plan earlier; I hadn’t told them of my Abids plan.  I went along with the ladies since it was a lunch plan. 

And here I was, at Abids, at 11 in the morning.  Susheel said he was on his way.  I did some b(l)ooking around and found a book that I wanted to buy.  It was in fairly good shape, but I thought I’d come around one more time and see.  I didn’t want to show too much interest.  I saw Umashankar first; then Vinod arrived.  After some initial browsing, Umashankar, Vinod, and I went to the Irani hotel for chai.  Then Susheel called and said he’d reached Abids.  Vinod and Uma went inside the café and there was another friend of theirs along with them.  I waited outside for Susheel, and then we had chai.  I was meeting Susheel after years.  He is my oldest friend in Hyderabad, going back to 1991.  He recently converted to fountainpenism and that was an added topic that we talk about on chat machines. 

Anyway, Vinod and Umashankar were still at the Irani sipping tea and chatting.  I told Vinod that I’d be moving ahead with Susheel.  Susheel and I went around seeing books and talking, but not finding anything.  I was wondering if I’d get anything today at all.  We went inside the complex, there were heaps of books.  Susheel went through a stack of comics, then he found some Manga comics.  But he didn’t pick up any.  I saw another book which I thought I should pick up, but let it lie.   

We came out of the complex from the other side and rounded back to the beginning of Bata galli.  There was 20 rupees pile there and I had found some books there earlier. In this pile I found my first Ross Macdonald-Lew Archer novel at Abids so far… a Lew Archer novel that I hadn’t read yet, that too for 20 rupees.  I was ecstatic, but didn’t show it much.  The Doomsters was the last Lew Archer novel on my list and after searching for a long time, I settled for an omnibus edition (Archer in Jeopardy) with this novel and two more Lew Archer novels.  The omnibus edition was purchased more for its antiquarian value, so this copy at Abids was very gratefully accepted. 

After that I saw Susheel off, and resumed my search.  I thought I’d see if those two books that I was interested in earlier were still there.  One was there … waiting.  When I saw Cross Channel by Julian Barnes on that pile, I was not sure … I had read Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending recently, and on the back of it, had purchased Arthur & George and The Noise of Time.  I had started reading Arthur & George, and I was on a Julian Barnes trip anyway.  I knew that Cross Channel is not a novel, because I hadn’t seen the book on the list of novels by Barnes, so I thought it’d be a book of essays when I saw it on the pavement at Abids.  Now I picked it up and read what was written on the back cover and realized that it is a book of short stories.  I didn’t hesitate, I picked the book up for 30 rupees. 

I had seen Keigo Higashino’s Naoko very early on on Sunday, but hadn’t picked it up.  I am a big fan of Higashino’s novels, and when I saw Naoko at Abids, my eyebrows shot up.  For one, I have been seeing this same edition on amazon, and the price was high for me.  I also felt that this was an overseas edition not yet available for sale in Indian shops, so I was also surprised that this book found its way to Abids.  Anyway, I was pleased that I found it.  I asked how much, he said 60, I said 30, he said 40, I said done. 

And this time at Abids I got three books by three authors whose books I had read earlier and enjoyed and appreciated.  All for 90 rupees only.  This sort of thing doesn’t happen often at Abids.

A bountiful haul at Abids on 19th November …

As if to compensate for letting me return home with an empty bag on the previous Sunday, Abids bestowed a bounty of 8 books on me on Sunday the 19^th … ah well, but I am running ahead of my story …

Vinod had posted a couple of weeks earlier that he found a novel named Chinnery’s Hotel by Jaysinh Birjepatil at Abids (a heartbreaking-lost and serendipitous-found story … read here) and that it was listed by Khushwant Singh as one of the major Indian novels in the last sixty years that left a deep impression on him … and that the author had written two more novels … there was a vague memory of having read about the book when it was released … and also having seen it at Bookpoint here … I checked my online used book sources and was happy to find Chinnery’s Hotel at Abids prices!!  I also found two copies of the author’s other novel The Good Muslim of Jackson Heights … I bought both copies, one copy which I wanted to give Vinod …  

So, off I went to Abids on the 12^th … I called up Vinod to check his whereabouts at Abids and he told me that he is not at Abids and might not be able to make it … aww maan … that was a downer … I couldn’t give the novel to Vinod and I wandered around listlessly trying to see if I could find some books that could lift my spirits … I also had to locate some mathematics workbooks for Mamoon … I found two workbooks, but no novels, no nothing … and I trudged home … really, it was very boring at Abids without Vinod and our chai and chat session and later joint bibliovenating © (ha ha … just like that … I invented/created the word ‘bibliovenator,’ you see … yeah, really … god promise!) with us pointing out books to each other … ah, well … there’s always next Sunday …

But I was not sure because my Appa and Amma were arriving on the next Sunday morning and if I had to visit Abids, it really had to be a flying visit … I checked with Vinod if he would be going to Abids … yes, he said … I checked with Anand if he would be free to take me to Abids and back … he said yes … I told him I’d confirm in the morning … I also alerted Shruti … because this was unprecedented – me going to Abids on two consecutive Sundays!!  All things tied up and I finally decided at 8 in the morning that I’d be going to Abids after all … but I had only an hour’s window for meeting, chatting and bibliovenating …

So, off I went to Abids on the 19^th too … I met Vinod … Umashankar was there too … I gave him The Good Muslim of Jackson Heights … I was happy to see the gleam in his eyes … chalo, main job done … then we had chai and chota samosas … and we chatted for a while … and then we set out … I concentrated only on the ‘20 Rupees’ piles at three places and picked up these 8 books …

In A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters, I found the first novel in a series of ‘medieval whodunit’ novels featuring Brother Cadfael … I started reading this one … very very slowly … and I must say I am happily sucked into this medieval English world of brothers and priors and abbeys and herbariums …  

Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein, a Pakistani writer living in London … Aamer Hussein is rather known for his short stories, and this book is a novella that tells a tale of east-west romance …  

I found two books by Elmore Leonard, one of my favourite crime fiction writers … Elmore Leonard wrote a good number of westerns too and Gunsights is one such tale and I haven’t read any westerns by Elmore Leonard, and so this was a good one … and after reading Ron Scheer’s article How to Write like Elmore Leonard: Gunsights (1979), Gunsights appears juicier … 

I have a copy of Elmore Leonard’s City Primeval already, but I picked it up along with Robert B. Parker’s Sudden Mischief, another doubles, for my colleagues … members of the small and informal book reading club for which I lend books from my collection … 

  

I found another Doctorow novel, The Waterworks, to add to my Doctorow collection all exclusively found at Abids … 

When I picked up Tarka the Otter, I thought I was buying a children’s book for Mamoon, and then the usual curiosity bug bit me and I realized that this book has quite some history behind it … Tarka the Otter, written in 1927, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1928, and has never been out of print!  It was not written for children per se, but became popular with young adults and the book was praised by Thomas Hardy and T E Lawrence and has influenced literary figures like Ted Hughes, Roger Deakin, and Rachel Carson and nature writers Kenneth Allsop  and Denys Watkins-Pitchford described it as "the greatest animal story ever written.” 

It was at Abids that I first ran into a David Quantick book, and then found another and I liked what I read … and then I found another one on the 19^th, The Dangerous Book for Middle-Aged Men … 

I was super happy after the haul and more so, afterwards discovering that some of these are real gems ... thank you Abids!!!

Abids on Sunday after 6 months …

So, I set out to hunt books at Abids on Sunday after a gap of almost 6 months.  During these 6 months, the thought of going to Abids occurred several times, but most of the times it was the ‘spirit willing, flesh weak’ syndrome that made me stay put at home, and other times there was something or the other at home that required my presence or attention.  Vinod had also enquired why I had not been Abid-ing all these days.  This time, Shruti also pushed me into going to Abids.  And so, I went this last Sunday to Abids to hunt books and to meet Vinod, Umashankar, and Srikanth. 

I reached at around 11 o’ clock and rang up Vinod, and I got a ‘switched off’ message.  I started wondering and then stopped wondering.  There was a heap of books where I was standing and I dove in.  In the same place earlier, the heap used to be very small, but now there were lots of books.  There were many that I wanted to buy, but hesitated and continued looking.  I found an Adam Dalgliesh mystery by P D James.  I haven’t read any Adam Dalgliesh mystery so far and not because of lack of opportunities.  You’ll finds lots of P D James at Abids on any given Sunday.  So, let me make a beginning I thought and picked up Original Sin.  

I then saw a good copy of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind.  I had read this novel earlier in 2005 when it was released in India.  Anyway, I had thoroughly enjoyed reading it.  The novel belongs to a sub-genre of crime fiction which is now being called ‘Bibliomysteries.’  The Shadow of the Wind is set in Spain and begins with the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books,’ hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona.  This was a good copy and I didn’t have the heart to leave it behind.  Vinod usually picks up good copies of novels that he already has and read, and gifts them to his friends.  I had emulated this ‘good habit’ earlier and had gifted a couple of ‘Abids’ books to a student of mine.  I picked The Shadow of the Wind and hope to find an interested reader for this! 

  

Then I saw a Peter Robinson novel.  Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks novels are a favourite of mine, more so because I had picked up a couple of Inspector Banks novels on a hunch at a Best Books sale a couple of years ago and found them to be really good.  So, Peter Robinson was ‘my discovery.’  And happily enough, the Peter Robinson novel that I saw and picked up turned out to be an ‘omnibus,’ two novels in one volume – Dry Bones that Dream and The Hanging Valley.  I quickly scanned my memory bank to check if I had already read these titles.  The results were hazy, and there was still a chance that I hadn’t read these two titles.  It is quite possible I thought, that I had read some other police procedural novel, possibly Ian Rankin’s, which also had ‘hanging’ or ‘bones’ in the title.  Either way, no loss I thought, if not, I could always gift it away. 

I paid for the three books (Rs.80!) and put them in my bag.  I then turned around to check the smaller pile, and lo and behold (!), I saw Vinod, Uma, and Srikanth, walking towards the same stall.  After all the ‘hi-s’ and ‘hello-s,’ I told Vinod that I had received a ‘switched off’ message when I had called him.  He said he had changed his number now that he is in Nalagonda.  This was news to me.  He said he had gone back to his earlier department and now transferred to Nalagonda.  Uma and Srikanth were searching among the pile of books and each found a different edition of the well-known chef Anthony Bourdain’s book.  I think it was Kitchen Confidential, I am not sure though.  I continued my search in the smaller pile and picked up a book I felt I had read about and I am sure it was in the news when it came out – A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka.  The title itself was intriguing enough and the blurbs all over the front and back and inside told me that the novel had won a couple of prizes (Bollinger Everyman and SAGA) and was longlisted (Booker) and shortlisted (Orange), and that it has been translated into 27 languages.  There were lots of excerpts from reviews and the most common adjective used, among the many, to describe it was, ‘funny.’  That sort of settled the matter for me.  

I saw another book with an arresting green, black, and red cover with an outline (silhouette!) of a donkey in the centre.  I had never heard of the author (Patricia Lynch) or the title (The Turf-Cutter’s Donkey) before.  A small blurb on the back cover informed me that this story is a classic of children’s literature and ‘remains one of the most magical and exciting of Irish fantasies’ and also that it was ‘for readers aged 8-12.’  Mamoon is seven now and she would be ready to be able to read it in a couple of years’ time.  I picked it up for Mamoon’s fledgling library, but I will read it too. 

I had got 5 books from one stall, and that too the first stall I visited.  I was sated and happy.  We all trooped into the nearest Irani and in between slurps of chai and bites of biscuit, we talked about books and films, with the Marathi film, Sairat, dominating the conversation.  We then trooped out and continued with our hunt.  My bag was full and I was too satisfied to carry on.  But carry on I did and did the whole round and somewhere I lost the other three.  I remembered that Shruti had asked me to pick up a few colouring and art books for Mamoon.  I found a seller with a whole heap of such books and bought around 10 books for Mamoon.  

On my way back, I saw Uma and Srikanth walking towards me and asked me if I had seen Vinod.  I told them I saw his head somewhere and by the time I reached the spot, he had disappeared and that he was probably engulfed by the books.  They moved on and I moved on.

I felt that some of the usual booksellers were absent and there were quite a few empty places on the pavement.  The weather alternated between cloudy and slightly warm, and maybe the threat of rain could have forced some of the sellers to not put up their wares that day.  It was nearing 1 o’ clock and time to leave.  When I reached home, the first thing I did was to check the two Peter Robinson titles.  I was pleased to know that I hadn’t read these two novels and proceeded to read them without further delay on Sunday itself.  And yesterday night, I finished them!!