The Sunday Haul (on 01-08-2021)

There are some books I don’t remember buying so I end up buying them again until I find out that I had bought that book before. Last Sunday at Abids I saw a copy of ‘The Confessions of Nat Turner’ by William Styron that I do not clearly remember buying but somehow I felt I had it at home. Nevertheless  I did not want to miss buying it so I picked it up.

A few years ago I had bought a nice copy of ‘Almost French’ by Sarah Turnbull that I remember reading and also giving it away. Later I realized I should not have given it away since I wanted to read it again. So last Sunday luck smiled on me and I found a nice copy of Almost French’ by Sarah Turnbull that I got for just fifty rupees only.

I had seen a copy of a ‘Rogue Male’ by Geoffrey Household somewhere on a seller’s WhatsApp group but someone claimed it before I could. I was curious to read the book and not soon after missing it online I came across a copy at Abids last Sunday. It was one of the four books I picked up from one seller. I read it after I got home and the main character in it reminded me of one of the killers in Jake Arnott's "He Kills Coppers' that I had read long back. 

 

The second book I found was a copy of ‘The Cat’s Paw’ by James Heron that appeared to be a good book on the face of it though I had not heard of the title or the author before.

 

The third book I found was a copy of ‘Lovers and Tyrants’ by Francine du Plessix Gray. I vaguely remember the author and I picked up this title too on the hunch that it might be a good read.

On the way home at Chikkadpally I stopped at a seller and at once spotted a nice copy of ‘Collected Poems-1952-1988’ Nissim Ezekiel.  While in junior college during 1979-81 we had ‘Night of the Scorpion’ in the English course taught by a short, long haired lecturer whose name I cannot remember now. The way he explained the poem has stayed in my mind and since then I have been collecting poems by Ezekiel and other Indian poets. I was terribly glad to find all of Nissim Ezekiel’s poems in one place.

In the same pile was a copy of ‘Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well- Autobiography: Book 4’ by Sean O’Casey, the Irish dramatist. I have heard of his name before but haven’t found or read any of his books. It was sufficient that he was Irish for me to pick up this autobiography.

I am a fan of Graham Greene and have almost all his titles except ‘In Search of a Character: Two African Journals’ by Graham Greene that I have heard of only recently. I had thought it would be a normal sized book of around 200 pages. But this turned out to be a slim volume but nevertheless I am terribly pleased that I found this title. I had not expected to find this book anywhere.

 

I had read about ‘The Vermilion Boat’ by Sudhin N. Ghose somewhere very recently but do not recollect where it was. But this copy, a hardcover one, with beautiful illustration on the title page was a fascinating one so I took it.