The Haul

It has become a habit with me to drop in at one of the half a dozen second hand bookstores in Hyderabad whenever I am feeling restless. There are a few books that I am looking for and I scour the bookstores whenever I find time in the hope of finding these elusive titles. Sometime last week I dropped in at the Best Book Centre branch at Lakdikapul. There were many books that I wanted to buy but I had a limited budget and so ended up buying only two books. One was Kamala Markandaya’s ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ and the other was CJ Koch’s ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ that appeared interesting for more than two reasons. The first reason was that it was a Penguin imprint, second reason was that the price was only fifty rupees and the third and final reason was enticing cover. I got both the books for less than hundred rupees.

Then again on Sunday at the book bazaar at Abids I came up with a haul of four books. Three of the books were titles that I already have. The first find was a nice copy of ‘Sudden Mischief’ by Robert B. Parker that I got pretty cheap at only thirty rupees. The second find was yet another copy of Helene Hanff’s ‘84, Charing Cross Road’ that I found exactly at the same spot where I had found another copy a couple of months earlier. Then the third find was my second copy of ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers that I got pretty cheap again, at only thirty rupees. This copy had a different cover and seemed better than the one I had bought a long time ago.

The fourth and final book I had found was a title of poetry by three poets. It was one of a series by Penguin called Penguin Modern Poets 5. One of the poets I could recognise was Allen Ginsberg and the other two were names I had not heard before- Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. I am glad I found this slim volume of verse that I bought for only ten rupees. Imagine.