The Sunday Haul (on 26-09-2021)

The Sunday before last Sunday it wasn’t possible to step out of the house to go anywhere because of the traffic restrictions on account of the Ganesh immersion processions. So it was an agonizing fortnight long wait for last Sunday to go to Abids, the book heaven that it is on Sunday. I came home with two books in the haul.

Sometime ago last year I had found a copy of ‘Death in Venice’ by Thomas Mann at Chikkadpally that I am yet to read. In the post I wrote afterwards about the haul I wrote that I had two copies of ‘The Magic Mountain’ that I had found at Delhi. Well, I realize now that it wasn’t ‘The Magic Mountain’ but ‘The Seven Story Mountain’ by Thomas Merton that I had found. I got confused but anyway it was a nice copy of ‘The Magic Mountain’ by Thomas Mann that I saw last Sunday with a seller who is difficult to deal with because he quotes unreasonable prices. Somehow I managed to get this book for only hundred rupees. The book is 716 pages look and thick as a brick. I don’t know when I will find the time to read it.

The next find was by a writer I discovered decades ago when I used to frequent the British Library when it was located in the Sarovar complex opposite the Secretariat. I do not remember the title of the book I borrowed there but I remembered the name Iris Murdoch. I had found several titles of her and last Sunday I found a copy of ‘A Word Child’ that I got for seventy rupees. I was intrigued by the picture on the cover with a woman in a sari in the background. I plan to begin reading it as soon as I finish the book I am currently reading.