The Sunday Haul

The first book I found at Abids shortly after I parked my bike was VS Naipaul’s ‘Finding the Centre’ that I had been looking for since a longish time. I got the copy for only forty rupees which is something of a miracle. The seller is a crusty fellow who doesn’t yield much to bargaining and it felt good to browbeat him and get the book at my price. It was a good beginning to the Sunday hunt for books at Abids though I was secretly hoping that I wouldn’t find any other book.


More than half a decade after I first read about ’84 Charing Cross Road’ by Helene Hanff I found the book about two or three years ago. When I first found it I thought I’d start reading it right away since it was about books and the reading habit which is something I cannot resist reading. However, I started reading it only a couple of months back almost two or three years after I found the book. Incidentally, it is one of the books I read in the car on my way to the office. Needless to say it was a wonderful book and not surprisingly it has been made into a movie too. ’84 Charing Cross Road’ is a book that everyone who genuinely loves to read books must read at least once. Those who do not understand guys like us who love books and buy them also must read it. Last Sunday I found another copy of ’84 Charing Cross Road’ and bought it in the hope that there’d be someone I can give the book to. The book also came cheap to me, only thirty rupees.

The next find of Sunday was a title by an author I hadn’t heard of before. But since it was a travel book and moreover on Andalucia, I bought ‘Andalucia: A Portrait of Southern Spain’ by Nicholas Luard. Andalucia is another of those places in my long list of places I can never hope to visit on an official trip. I am glad I found it but the only worrying thing is whether I will find enough time to finish the book which is almost three hundred pages long. The last find of Sunday was yet another book on screenwriting- ‘Teach Yourself Screenwriting’ by Raymond G. Frensham- that I got very cheap. I do not know how many more books on screenwriting I have to read before I get the hang of it.