The online Haul

 Last Sunday it rained all day from morning till night. In fact it had been raining since Saturday evening. Also, Bakrid was on Sunday and since all the sellers at Abids celebrate Bakrid I felt there would be no point in going to Abids and so stayed put at home. I was also recovering from a bad cold so I thought it would do me some good if I rested instead of going out. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t go to Abids since I had planned to pick up a few titles that I had seen the previous Sunday but hadn’t bought. But it wasn’t a totally book less weekend. On Saturday I received a couple of books I had claimed in a sale conducted by a bookseller in Mumbai on his WhatsApp group.

A long time back when I really had no idea about what I liked to read, and which title was good and worth reading, I came across a title by Jonathan Raban. I liked the book very much and some years afterwards I found a couple of titles by Raban, (Arabia, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Old Glory) one of which was ‘For Love and Money’ which was a sort of a memoir that I enjoyed reading very much. In a sale I had claimed a copy of ‘Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings’ by Jonathan Raban that I received in the mail last Saturday. It is about his in the Inside Passage, a journey from Puget Sound to Alaska on a boat. It is a hardcover title and looks almost new.

I came into Anita Brookner’s books only recently, and have enjoyed reading all her books that I’ve read so far. I am desperate to find ‘Hotel du Lac’ that I haven’t been able to get anywhere and I really hope I find it soon enough. I had also claimed a copy of ‘Family and Friends’ by Anita Brookner in the sale on WA which was also delivered last Saturday.

I’ve written it here several times that I love anything on Africa, a continent I am fascinated by. I have managed to find many titles on Africa written by Africans themselves and also by non-Africans. A couple of months ago I had seen the Instagram page of a Goa based bookseller where he had pictures of covers of a few books on sale. The first was a copy of ‘Small Wars, Small Mercies: Journeys in Africa’s Disputed Nations’ by Jeremy Harding that I could hardly wait to lay my hands on after claiming it. It is a Penguin title and is a journalist’s account of his journeys in some African nations.

Another title that I managed to claim and also get was a copy of ‘Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart’ by Tim Butcher. A couple of months ago I had found a different title by Tim Butcher- ‘Chasing the Devil’ which I had read and liked very much. Tim Butcher is a journalist with Daily Telegraph and had been its Africa Bureau Chief. I am very glad I got this book that no one had claimed on the sale.

With these two titles I have a long list of books on Africa that I have to begin reading soon.