The Sunday Haul (on 15-01-2017)

My luck with books seems to be holding on well into the New Year also. In the first two Sundays of this month I found some pretty good titles on the pavements of Abids. I had found titles by Julian Symons(Critical Observations) Frank Harris, and also Jean Genet (Querelle at Brest). Last Sunday again I foudn five good titles which take the tally of books I have bought this month alone to twelve. If I keep buying books at this rate I think I will end up with aother haul of nearly two hundred books by the end of this year also. I cannot help picking up the titles I see because I find them too good to leave behnd like the two Dashiel Hammets I came across last Sunday.

It may sound odd but I love to read film related books though I myself do not watch movies as often as I wish, I watch about two or three moveies in a year which is less than the number of film related books I buy every year. My first find last Sunday at Abids was such a film related book. I found a nice copy of 'Our Films Their Films' by Satyajit Ray. I snapped it up the instant I spotted it. It was a good copy and the seller asked for just thirty rupees for it.

The second find was a book by an author I thought I was familiar with. I saw a copy of 'A Loss of Heart' by Robert McCrum but I wondered if it was the same Robert McCrum who wrote 'My Year Off' and also a book on PG Wodehouse. When I checked the inside pages of ' A Loss of Heart' for list of other titles by the author I did not find 'My Year Off' in it. Later I found online that it was the same author. Since the book was a thriller and the blurbs at the back were impressive I went by my gut instinct and picked it up. I got it for only twenty rupees.

The next find was a title I had sen the Sunday before. I had seen 'Johnny Got His Gun' by Dalton Trumbo but hadn't bought it though the blurb at the back said this: It was a Vietnam war novel and I have read enough titles like it to know how hardhitting and gut churning they are. After some hesitation wondering if I'd be able to take all that I finally bought it thinking I'd be a fool not to read a book that 'Washington Post' says is 'A terrifying book, of extraordinary emotional intensity.'

The next finds were the two Dashiell Hammett titles that I found one after the other. I first saw 'The Maltese Falcon' in a heap selling for only twenty rupees with a seller who did not seem to know its value. I grabbed right away though I have a copy at home. Even before the excitement of finding one of the greatest classics of crime fiction died away I stumbled upon a nice copy of 'The Continental Op' with another seller a few feet away. I was surprised at the coincidence of finding two Dashiell Hammett titles within minutes. I have a copy of 'The Continental Op' too at home but I bought it because I couldn't bear not buying it, and also because I was getting it for just thirty rupees.