The Sunday Haul (on 02-10-2016)

If I thought I was lucky the previous Sunday after I found my first Madhur Jaffrey cookbook then last Sunday I got luckier. Last Sunday I found another Madhur Jaffrey cookbook that was published even earlier than the one I found the previous Sunday. It was ‘A Taste of India’ by Madhur Jaffrey and published by Pan in 1985 which I got for just sixty rupees. It has state wise sections with a write up on a them followed by some recipes of the most well known dishes of each state. I was surprised to see that not the state but Hyderabad was also featured and more than half a dozen recipes of dishes except biryani. It has some really stunning colour photographs of some dishes by Christine Hanscomb. It looked like a collector’s item and I am glad I found this wonderful book.

The next find also happened to be another cookbook. In a heap of books being sold for twenty rupees near Bata I found a book with a bright yellow cover. It was ‘Punjabi Cooking’ with Premjit T. Gill. It has, as the title suggests, recipes of Punjabi dishes-vegetarian, non-vegetarian, desserts and such things. It is a no-frills book with the sort of font that was common in the eighties and a few line drawings. I liked the simple presentation and hence picked up the book.

In another twenty rupee heap of books I spotted a book with an intriguing cover. The book I spotted was ‘The Hi-Lo Country’ by Max Evans described as ‘one of the greatest Western writers of all time’ on the cover that also had a photograph of a scene from a movie of the same name by Stephen Frears. It seemed an interesting book and since I hadn’t heard of Max Evans I picked it up. I don’t know when I will read it but I hope to read it sometime this year.

On the way back home, at Chikkadpally, I found the book I had missed buying the previous Sunday. I got the copy of ‘Brunizem’ by Sujatha Bhatt published by Penguin. It is a collection of sixty poems in three sections: The First Disciple (18 poems), A Different History (20 poems), and Eurydice Speaks (22 poems). It was a recipient of the Commowealth Poetry Prize (Asia), it says on the cover. This is the 117th book I bought this year and it looks like I will end up buying about 150 books this year too what with three more months left for the year to end including the Hyderabad Book Fair that might be sometime in December.