The Sunday Haul (on 23-08-2015)

It looks like I’ve stumbled upon another master of crime thrillers almost by accident. There are some book covers, often titles, or the author’s name that exert a powerful pull on you. Last Sunday, while at the Abids book bazaar, I came upon a copy of ‘High Sierra’ by WR Burnett. After I picked it up for a closer look somehow I felt that I had to buy it. I did not take long to decide to buy it. Surprisingly I got it for only twenty rupees. Later I saw that WR Burnett had written some pretty good titles. I felt lucky I found another new crime fiction author. One of these days I plan to start reading ‘High Sierra’.

I had been looking for a good copy of Jerry Pinto’s ‘Surviving Women’ that at last I found at Abids last Sunday. Ever since I read that this title was written as a kind of riposte to Shobha De’s ‘Surviving Men,’ I have been looking for ‘Surviving Women’ but I plan to read it only after reading ‘Surviving Men’. I wonder when I will find it. It would be the only book by Shobha De that I would have read.

The next title I found was another travel book by a famous author of an earlier generation. I found a nice copy of ‘Twilight in Italy’ by DH Lawrence that I got pretty cheap. I paid only forty rupees for this small book. I had been looking for short story collections of VS Pritchett but haven’t been able to find them anywhere. Last Sunday I found ‘A Cab at the Door/Midnight Oil’ by VS Pritchett in a heap of books. This was two books in one version of his autobiography.

Jai dropped in at Abids and while we were having chai at our usual Irani joint before foraying into the book-lined pavements he gifted me a copy of ‘The Laughing Policeman’ by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.