On the rack

Books soaking in the sun. 

 - Brian Mendonca

Every once in a while I try to examine what's on my bookrack. Out of necessity the books and the shelf need to be dusted for fear of making the room musty. 

I usually shuffle my books around from my shelf in one of the cupboards in Dwayne's room to my bookrack hosting what I am currently intending to read. 

The bookrack is a fabindia piece. I picked up one of those in Delhi and have loved its minimalist design. I was delighted to procure one in Goa as well from their store in Campal. 

There are a plethora of poetry books - mostly paperback - eagerly awaiting my third book of poems titled Jasmine City:Poems from Delhi. 

I leaf through some poems . . . Borges, Gieve Patel, P. Murugan, Sridala Swami, and my latest harvest of books from Chennai. Short stories this time.

Then there are the books from GALF 2022. Amit Ranjan is there. 

One rack is devoted to my own publications. Books in which my academic papers have been published. Do I need them here? 

The nether shelves have books on Kerala: one by by Uday Kumar, drama, and history. Latin American short stories are not far behind, as are American short stories. William Dalrymple represents the traveller in me. 

Several books pace proudly. These are those I read to contribute meaningfully to book club meetings. They include The Seven Moons of Malli Almeida, The Tomb, and Independence. 

The Bible and commentaries on the book of Isaiah sit mightily somewhere in the middle. 

My latest haul includes poems written in prisons; a book written by Bahadur Shah Zafar's grandson describing the last days of the Mughsls in Delhi; a historical novel on the Persians; and the Lectio Divina edition of the Bible. 

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GALF: Goa Arts and Literature Festival. Pic taken by Brian Mendonca at Porvorim on 2nd June 2023.