The Sunday Haul (on 16-8-2015)

It had been a long time since it had rained all night and also the following morning in Hyderabad. I wouldn’t have minded if it was any other day but the next morning it happened to be Sunday. The continuous downpour washed away my Sunday morning routine of taking a long walk and later sitting in an Irani café near home and reading all the Sunday papers. One by one my Sunday routines were being washed out as the rain showed no sign of abating. When it looked like it would rain all day I thought I may not be able to go to Abids to look for books when all of a sudden it stopped raining. I rushed out on the bike to Abids feeling glad.

After a lengthy chat over tea in the Irani café we started out. Because it was still cloudy and looked like there would be more rain, not many of the sellers had kept their books on the pavement. So there wasn’t much to look. I manage to spot another copy of ‘The Outsider’ by Albert Camus. This copy was a different edition, bigger than the one I found last Sunday and also had a different cover. Later after I bought it for only fifty rupees I learnt that it had an ‘Afterword’ as well. The copy I had bought the other week did not have it. That was the only title I found at Abids last Sunday.

Earlier in the week I had been to Landmark with Hari. I was very surprised that the shelves which had held thousands of books now held toys. The entire book section was relegated to a side and seemed to occupy not more than one tenth of the store. It seemed an ominous sign since the Landmark at Banjara Hills had shut down and I wondered if the Somajiguda branch too might be going the same way in the near future. However, though the number of books had shrunk I happened to see a shelf completely filled with little books with black covers that caught my eye. They were ‘Little Black Classics’ from Penguin. I loved the size, handy enough to fit into a shirt pocket with not more than 60 pages. The biggest surprise was the price. They were Rs 49 each and very affordable. I picked up ‘Aphorisms on Love and Hate’ by Friedrich Nietzsche and also ‘Remember, Body…’ by C.P. Cavafy. Hari picked up nearly thirty titles and paid for mine too which was the icing on the cake.

I came to learn that the long awaited book exhibition and sale by Best Books is set to begin from 1st of September until 12th September. The timing of the sale suits me because the wallet will be full as the sale begins on payday.