Last Sunday came immediately after the Dasara festival ended so the regular shops at Abids were closed making way for the sellers of second hand books to return to their original spots. With all the sellers back at Abids after the festival shopping was done I expected to land a good haul. With three books in the haul it wasn’t such a bad Sunday out at Abids last Sunday.
The first find was a nice copy of ‘Girl in Hyacinth Blue’ by Susan Vreeland. Vreeland had died in August this year. ‘Girl in Hyacinth Blue’ is one of her bestselling novels that was also made into a movie for television was what I could gather about Susan Vreeland online. I got this book for forty rupees.
The second find was a fantastic book. I spotted a copy of ‘Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories’ by Saul Bellow. This is a collection of four stories apart from the title story; What Kind of Day Did You Have? ; Zetland: By a Character Witness; A Silver Dish; and Cousins. It wasn’t in a good copy because the pages had moisture stains but I knew I won’t find another copy so I ended buying it. Instead of fixing the price himself the seller asked me to fix the price and said he would accept whatever I gave. I was flummoxed and offered to give seventy five rupees for it. He added five more rupees and fixed the price at eighty rupees that I paid.
The third and last find was at Chikkadpally. The previous Sunday I had seen a book at Chikkadpally I thought I should have bought. However I did not buy it since I had already bought four books and regretted after going home. But last Sunday I saw it again and picked up ‘Coming Forth by Day’ by Niranjana. ‘Coming Forth by Day’ is the English translation of a Kannada novel ‘Mrutyunjaya’ by Niranjana translated by Tejaswini Niranjana, his daughter.
1 comment:
I found Saul Bellow difficult to read. Not my style. But I find the one by Niranjana interesting.
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