The Sunday Haul

After the super haul of six books last week preceded by another good haul the previous Sunday, my collection of books that I have to read has reached impossible proportions. I told myself (and also some of my friends) that I would not buy any more books until I have finished reading at least half of the books in my pile. But such decisions are hard to give effect to especially in cities like Hyderabad where there are several second hand book stores and where there’s a thriving second hand book market every Sunday where the likes of me throng come what may. This Sunday despite my avowals not to buy any books, I ended up buying two more.



One of the best finds at the Best Books sale the previous Sunday had been a collection of short stories by a writer I had not heard about earlier. I had bought Alistair MacLeod’s ‘Islands’ after I saw the haunting picture on the cover and my hunch about the book being a good find was right after the reviews on the net said the same. Somewhere in the book I had read about his other collection of short stories- The Lost Salt Gift of Blood- that too seemed to be a wonderful book. On Sunday within minutes of parking my bike I saw this book at a spot where I usually look at the titles quite closely. I wonder how I had missed seeing this title earlier. Maybe because it was small and slim, which is one reason why I got the book for only ten rupees. ‘Lost Salt Gift of Blood’ contains seven short stories- In the Fall, The Vastness of the Dark, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, The Return, The Golden Gift of Grey, The Boat, The Road to Rankin’s Point, and as a bonus it also has an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates, another master story teller.



The other find of Sunday was a book by Ashokamitran. A couple of years ago I had come across ‘A Most Truthful Picture’ by Ashokamitran at a second hand book store and I had let the book go because of the price. After a few weeks when I went again the book was missing and I regretted not buying the book then. So when I came across a nice, hardcover copy of ‘A Most Truthful Picture and Other Stories’ with twenty five stories in it I picked it up. It cost me only thirty rupees. I have read his other books- The Eighteenth Parallel and also ‘Mole’ and found them to be hugely entertaining. I am extremely glad I found these two books that I think will not take much time to finish reading.