The Sunday Haul (on 4-9-2016)

Yesterday, by a curious coincidence I was reading a book by David Pryce Jones on Graham Greene’s writing when the next chapter I came upon in Navtej Sarna’s ‘Second Thoughts,’ that I am dipping into occasionally, also happened to be on Graham Greene. One of the books I had bought at Abids last Sunday happened to be one by Graham Greene- ‘The Ministry of Fear’- which was also written about in David Pryce Jones’ book.

Somehow I had come rather late to Graham Greene. Although I came across his ‘Brighton Rock,’ ‘The Power and the Glory’ on the pavements at Abids I did not pick them up feeling that I wasn’t yet ready for Graham Greene. A long time back I had found a book of essays by Greene that I read soon after. Then slowly I began to collect his titles one by one. I found his ‘Journey Without Maps’ recently and before that I had picked up ‘The Man Within’ after I read ‘The Man Within My Head’ by Pico Iyer.

I had also found ‘The Heart of the Matter’ and also ‘The Lawless Roads’ after reading which I felt I had been a bit dumb not to have read Graham Greene much earlier. I am captivated by Graham Greene’s writing and now I try not to miss any of his titles whenever I come across them. So far I haven’t found ‘The Ministry of Fear’ so when I saw it at Abids I made a grab for it. I got it for just thirty rupees.

The other book I found at Abids was a beautiful, brand new copy of ‘The Foolproof Cookbook’ by Rohini Singh. I already possess a copy of the same book but it is not as good as the copy I found on Sunday. It was for a hundred rupees but I did not paying that much for it. In the next couple of weeks I may have to start cooking for myself because now I plan to set up house at either Nalgonda or Suryapet where I am likely to be posted after the formation of the new districts in the State. This book might be useful then.