The Sunday Haul (on 23-01-2022)

2022 doesn’t seem to have begun well for me blogging-wise because I haven’t been able to post about the rest of the books I bought at the Hyderabad Book Fair last month. I have also not been able to post about the Sunday Hauls of the past three Sundays either. That’s because I had no time to write the posts since I was busy with work and also last week I was in bed with fever. However I will post the backlog stuff later but will begin with the haul I made last Sunday at Abids.

It was another of those mornings that begin cloudy and gradually become sunny. After a week spent in bed ill with cold, cough and a mild fever I was glad to be outdoors at Abids. The first find was an old looking book that had an attractive cover. It was a copy ‘Conflict’ by Aamir Ali, a name I haven’t heard before. I was intrigued by the cover as well as the name of the author and the fact that it was published in 1947 by National Information & Publications Ltd., Bombay. There was a stamp saying ‘Growth Centre, Hill Fort Hyderabad’ that made wonder what it could be. There was also a name written on it- Mohinder Singh on one of the front pages and while reading it I came across another name inscribed in black ink- Rajinder Singh. I wish I could find more about all these that I found about the book. It was not in a good condition with the cover on the spine torn but since it looked like an interesting book I picked it up.

The next find was a copy of ‘Gaff Topsails’ by Patrick Kavanagh. I had read about Patrick Kavanagh somewhere so I picked it up hoping it would be a good read. Another thing that made me buy the book was that it was a Penguin title. It says on one of the inside pages that it is Patrick Kavanagh’s first novel. There’s also a stamp on one of the front pages saying ‘Barter Books, Alnwick Station, Northumberland’ that I found interesting. I didn’t come cheap though as I had to shell out a hundred and fifty rupees for it.