Last Sunday turned out to be another very lucky day at Abids for me for I got five fantastic books in the haul. Once again I was alone at Abids and maybe that is why I landed such a good haul because I was focused on the books spread out on the pavements. It was a bright, sunny morning as I set out for Abids hoping to find the copy of ‘The Green Road’ by Anne Enright that I had seen the previous Sunday and not really expected to find anything else. But I was wrong for I not only found ‘The Green Road’ but also found four other wonderful titles.
Luckily for me no one had bought ‘The Green Road’ by Anne Enright after I had seen it but had not picked it because the seller asked for too high a price. However last Sunday I was ready to pay whatever he asked and got it for two hundred rupees. It was a bit too high but I wanted the book so shelled out the cash. I relaxed after I held it in my hand and walked on only to stumble upon another wonderful find.
Hari presented me a brand new copy of ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi on my birthday in February. I read it and felt very sad afterwards reading about the young, talented surgeon’s futile struggle with cancer. Last Sunday I saw another copy of this book and picked it up hoping to give it to someone. It was one of the two books I spotted with the same seller, the other title being ‘The Hour Before Dawn’ by Bhabendra Nath Saikia. It is an English translation of an Assamese novel ‘Antoreep’ and the translation was done by Maitreyee S.C. It was a Penguin title plus the cover was something I couldn’t ignore. I got these two books together for a hundred and fifty rupees which seemed to be a fair price.
There’s a seller who doesn’t know the worth of some of the wonderful titles that he sometimes puts up for sale. He sells every title he has almost at the same price, sometimes twenty or thirty rupees. That was the price I paid for ‘The Moslem Wife and Other Stories’ by Mavis Gallant that he had. This is the second Mavis Gallant title I found. This collection has eleven stories selected by Mordecai Richler who also wrote the Afterword in it: About Geneva, When We Were Nearly Young; The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street; An Autobiography; Saturday; The Latehomecomer; In Youth Is Pleasure; The Moslem Wife; Grippes and Poche; Overhead in a Balloon. I was thrilled to pick up this title that I found so casually.
When ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan won the Booker in 2014 I decided I would read it if I manage to find a second hand copy. Finally I came across a copy last Sunday and bought it for just seventy rupees. Normally I do not buy books that do not have a cover and the copy of ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ too did not have a cover. The cover was a white paper on the front and the back with the front cover folded back to reveal the title that I luckily managed to spot. Cover or no cover I was damn pleased to have found this wonderful book that I plan to read soon.
Then there were three cookbooks I picked up in addition to the above five titles: ‘Cooking with Chicken’ by Kamal Mehta, ‘Creative Cookery’ by Rohini Singh and ‘The Pleasures of Kashmiri Cookery’ by Anu Wakhlu that I paid a little more than fifty rupees for.
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