The Sunday Haul

The book I took along to read on the plane to Delhi on Tuesday was one I found on Sunday. It was the third title of Ross Thomas that I found at Abids. I saw ‘Yellow Dog Contract’ by Ross Thomas after Uma picked up a book that was right above it. Only the previous Sunday I had found ‘Twilight at Mac’s Place’ at Abids which was the second Ross Thomas title I had found after ‘The Fools in Town Are On Our Side’ that I had picked up a couple of months ago. Since I had been reading too much praise of Ross Thomas I decided to read the slimmest title which turned out to be ‘Yellow Dog Contract.’ I finished reading it yesterday and felt pretty pleased with myself for having discovered Ross Thomas. ‘Yellow Dog Contract’ had many funny lines that reminded me of Elmore Leonard and sometimes Robert B Parker though many shades better than Parker, the one liners especially.

The second find of Sunday was Len Deighton’s ‘Declarations of War’ that was right beside the Ross Thomas title. I had a copy of this book once but I do not know where it is now. Since I was getting this book for only twenty rupees I decided to buy it along with ‘Yellow Dog Contract’ which too came at the same price of twenty rupees. ‘Declarations of War’ as is evident from the title is war fiction and has thirteen stories: It Must Have Been Two Other Fellows, Winter’s Morning, First Base, Paper Casualty, Brent’s Deux Ex Machina, A New Way to Say Goodnight, Lord Nick Flies Again, Discipline, Mission Control, Hannibal One, Adagio, Bonus for a Salesman, Action, Twelve Good Men, and True.

The third find at Abids was a classic that I have been waiting to turn up somewhere since quite long. There’s a seller in Abids who sells only magazines and just a handful of books for which he doesn’t seem to care much. He doesn’t seem to have any knowledge of books or authors so he just looks at the book you have picked up from his collection and quotes only ten rupees. Only ten rupees for any book that he has to sell. That’s what I paid for a nice copy of ‘Fahrenheit 451’ that I found with him.