Friday Double Post: 1- The Diwali Haul

The Sunday before last Sunday which was the day I had to go to the office I could go to the book bazaar at Abids for an hour or so only in the evening. During the one hour I spent there I managed to find just one book- Jean Genet’s ‘The Dairy of a Thief’ that I got for twenty rupees. It was an autobiography/memoir by Genet.

Last Sunday it was Diwali but we went to Abids nevertheless though all the shops were open. Surprisingly, almost all the book sellers were present putting up their wares in some corner or the other. Before I got to Abids, at Chikkadpalli I picked up the first find of the day. It was Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Secret Agent’ that I got for thirty rupees. At another seller at Chikkadpally I found the second book which was Iris Murdoch’s ‘The Italian Girl’ that I got for only ten rupees.

Later at Abids we had our usual cup of chai, talked for a while and cribbed about how ‘The Hindu’ had declared a holiday that day, which was the first Sunday of the month and unfairly deprived us of the pleasure of reading ‘The Literary Review’ that is brought out on that day. I wondered why The Hindu’’ could not have issued TLR on Saturday when it could issue the Classified Ad pages and Habitat supplements with the Saturday’s issue. It is proof that for the newspapers the advertisers matter more than the readers. Anyway, after some serious griping we left for our hunt for good titles.

Sometime last year I had found Jake Arnott’s ‘True Crime’ that I read and found to be very good. I had read then that he had written other books too but I did not expect to find any of his books and anyway I had forgotten all about him until Sunday when I came across another Jake Arnott titleby him. It was ‘The Long Firm’ that I found in a bunch of books being sold for just ten rupees.