The Sunday Haul

It cannot be anything but a lucky coincidence when something like what took place on Sunday happens frequently. One of the books in the Super Haul on the previous Sunday was Atul Gawande’s ‘Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance’ and I had posted that I would be on the lookout for his earlier book ‘Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science’ and would be glad to find it. Well, I did find the book last Sunday but did not buy it for reasons that will be obvious by the end of this post.

It was one of my brothers who introduced Walter Mosley’s books to me and since then I have read quite a few of his Easy Rawlins titles. I do come across his books at Abids but have not felt the inclination to buy other books. But when I saw this title ‘The Man in My Basement’ I couldn’t help feeling that this was an unusual book. My hunch turned out to be correct for TMMB was indeed a different kind of book. I only hope somebody tells me it is a good find because I am not sure though I paid thirty rupees for it. The blurbs and reviews also say it is a good book and I hope it turns out to be one though I have no reason to believe otherwise since Mosley is one good writer.

One title that is on my list of must buy books is a title by Cormac McCarthy ‘Blood Meridian’ that I am still looking for. On Sunday I somehow couldn’t recollect the title and thought ‘All the Pretty Horses’ was the one I was looking for so I picked it up though I had to shell out fifty rupees for it. When I looked up my ‘Must Buy and Read’ list I realized I had picked up the wrong Cormac McCarthy title but I did not feel any regret. One of the blurbs on the back cover was Saul Bellow’s line about McCarthy’s writing which said ‘absolutely overpowering use of language…life giving and death-dealing sentence’ which is making me want to begin the book right away.

After spending eighty rupees on the haul and not exactly in the mood to add more books to the haul I stopped at Chikkadpally to look at the titles on display at one of the taciturn sellers there. It was with this guy that I spotted Atul Gawande’s book which he said would not offer for anything less than a hundred rupees. I hesitated and then finally decided to buy it next Sunday if it happens to be lying around which is certain to be the case. I guess it will be the smart thing to buy Atul Gawande’s first books since I can read both his titles one after the other. I hope next Sunday it will be mine.