The Sunday Haul (on 08-05-2022)

 

Mercifully it wasn’t too hot in Hyderabad last Sunday but it was hot enough to make me wear a cap at Abids. Since the Ramzan festival was over the stores selling dresses, shoes etc were closed and so the sellers of second hand books were present in their usual spots. On Sunday Abids looked normal and somehow I was pleased when I found four good titles.

Of late I am reading more non-fiction than fiction and travelogues account for a large space on my bookshelves. I keep reading in the papers how the war in Ukraine is affecting movement of wheat, cooking oil, and I wondered how it all happens. I also love to know about such things so when I spotted a copy of ‘Merchants of Grain’ by Dan Morgan I thought I’d buy it when I read that it was all about how wheat is marketed. I am reading it currently and it is fascinating account of the global merchants who deal in wheat and other grains moving it from one continent and other and making/losing millions.

Somehow I haven’t read anything by Lawrence Durrell or any of the Durrell brothers though I have read how good their books are. I spotted a copy of ‘The Dark Labyrinth’ by Lawrence Durrell that looked old and somewhat battered. It turned out to be a copy from Meghalaya State Central Library at Shillong making one wonder how it ended up here. I got it for fifty rupees only.

I had been seeing this title with various sellers at various times but did not buy it because the price was too high. Finally, last Sunday when I spotted another copy I decided to buy it whatever the price and was surprised to get a copy ‘The English’ by Jeremy Paxman for just a hundred rupees. It was a nice copy that looked almost new and I was glad I got it pretty cheap.

This title too was one I had been seeing with the same seller for a long time but hesitated to buy it for some unknown reason. Though it said on the cover that it was ‘One Fourteenth of an Elephant’ Ian Denys Peek I wasn’t very sure about how it was. So every time I walked away I had a strange feeling that I might be missing something good because on the cover it said ‘A memoir of life and death on the Burma-Thailand Railway’ that brought to mind the Man Booker prize winning ‘Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan.  So last Sunday I finally bought it and I paid hundred rupees for it.

Here's a corner of the Sunday second-hand book market at Abids in Hyderabad.