The Sunday Haul

It was a slightly upbeat Sunday for me this week. One reason could be the knowledge that I had picked up a few good books over the past week on my three visits to the Book Fair. Another reason could be that after two Sundays I am finally at home. One Sunday I had been at work at the Assembly and the other Sunday I was travelling. So I missed my regular Sunday routine for two successive Sundays and finally last Sunday I got a chance to visit Abids and also do other things I find to do time only on Sundays.

In the past I’ve sometimes picked up books on a mere hunch. There’s something about the cover or the title of the book that marks it out as something different. Last Sunday at Chikkadpally where I usually stop before going to Abids, I saw ‘A Small Death in Lisbon’ that I knew instantly was something different. And when I read the blurb I knew my hunch wasn’t wrong. ‘An intense reading experience. You will turn the last page of this compelling novel almost out of breath’ was what The New York Times’ blurb said on the cover of the book. I did not need anything more to convince me to pick up the book which I did for forty rupees. Later when I googled for Robert Wilson I knew I had landed a good book which adds to my growing collection of crime fiction.

A couple of weeks ago I had seen Ashokamitran’s ‘Mansarovar’ that I did not buy right away for two reasons. One reason was the fact that the seller was one who wasn’t the sort to give it away for a bargain and the other reason was my over confidence that no one would pick it up. Sadly, it was gone when I checked later and I felt very bad about letting it go. However on Sunday I found another book of his - ‘Mole’ - which is all about the seven months that Ashokamitran spent at the Iowa University in connection with some international visiting writer event. I’ve been dreaming of doing some sort of a writing workshop at Iowa University Writing School ever since I realised that my writing talent was almost non-existent and also that whatever little of it I have is taking me nowhere. Sadly, it remains out of my reach and perhaps will remain as another unfulfilled dream of mine.

I felt glad I had not picked up the copy of P Sainath’s ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’ that I saw at the book fair last week. I would have had to shell out two hundred rupees for it otherwise. On Sunday at Abids I found a copy of the same book that I got for only a hundred and twenty rupees. I feel sort of guilty about buying a second hand copy of the book since I had made a decision long back to buy only new copies of a few good books. Anyway, after I read the book which I now feel I shoud have read long time ago, I might buy a few new copies to gift to people who do not have any idea of what really farmers go through in our country.

Another book that I picked up was Robert B Parker’s ‘Widow’s Walk’ which Uma had spotted. I did not have an idea then that I already possess a copy of the book that one of my brothers had given me. With the Sunday’s haul of four books the total number of books I picked up during the month so far comes to eleven. It might go up by another couple of books because the Book Fair is not yet over and I have plans to drip in one last time.