The Sunday Haul

Somerset Maugham is one writer I read and reread all the time to remind myself that writing isn’t easy and that not everyone can be a writer. I cannot get enough of his writing since there is much to learn from it. I try to buy everything by Maugham and I have almost all his titles except a few. Of all his titles ‘Summing Up’ remains my favourite and I try to buy as many copies I find to give them away to people who harbour illusions of becoming writers. ‘Summing Up’ tells what it really takes to be a writer.

The other day I was at the Best Books store at Lakdi-ka-pul feeling restless for some reason. I found an old copy of ‘The Summing Up’ that had a different cover page with Maugham’s portrait on it. It looked like one of the first editions so I picked it up. I found another book on writing as well, Eudora Welty’s ‘One Writer’s Beginning,’ that I took though I have a good copy with me.

Then, on Sunday the first book I found was another Maugham title- ‘Ashenden’- that I do not have. I have come across copies of this book but none were in good condition so I passed them. The copy I found on Sunday with a seller in Chikkadpally was in good condition and since it was coming cheap I bought it.

The other finds were at Abids. At a seller we saw a new collection of books. One of them was Donna Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’ that I bought immediately on spotting it. At last I managed to find a book by Donna Tartt who seems to be everywhere. The other book I picked up in the same manner at the same seller was yet another copy of ‘Freaky Deaky’ by Elmore Leonard. Both books were in very good condition and I got the two books for a total of sixty rupees.