The Sunday Haul (on 29-08-2021)

The other Sunday I had had a major haul of a few lovely titles by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett among others, and three Sundays later I made another lovely haul last Sunday. However, not all of them were at Abids but most of them were at Chikkadpally.

I am a big fan of William Trevor and will not miss buying any of his titles that I happen to come across anywhere. I have multiple copies of a few of his titles though I do not always remember which. So when I spotted a copy of ‘The Love Department’ by William Trevor I thought I did not have it and felt pretty excited that I had found another William Trevor title. But when I got back home later in the afternoon I checked all the William Trevor titles on my bookshelf and saw that I already have a copy of ‘The Love Department’ but I was not disappointed.

Occasionally a bunch of old editions of some wonderful titles turn up with one of the sellers at Chikkadpally. The sight of such piles gets me all excited. I eagerly sorted through one such pile I noticed with a seller and picked up half a dozen titles that I kept aside for a closer look. Two of them were titles that I had been waiting to read after reading ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark. The two titles were old editions of ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘The Comforters’ by Muriel Spark. I felt lucky to have found not one but two Muriel Spark titles at one place.

Another title I had kept aside was a beautiful copy of ‘The Heart of the Matter’ by Graham Greene, one of my favorite writers. I already have a couple of copies of this title but not with this cover. I was quite thrilled to find this copy.

The fourth title was one I picked up based on the blurb. It was a copy of ‘Mon’ by Natsume Soseki. I haven’t heard of this writer and since I have very few titles by Japanese writers I decided to buy it. I got all these four books for just a hundred and sixty rupees.

At another seller a little away I spotted a copy of ‘Why I am Not a Hindu’ by Kancha Ilaiah, a Dalit intellectual and a critic of Hinduism who lives and teaches in OU in Hyderabad, .