Almost every Sunday I am convinced that when it comes to finding good titles I am very lucky. It was proved again last Sunday when I found a wonderful title by an author I was desperate to find. But it happened almost at the end of my browsing at Abids.
Sometime back I had found a book of articles and essays by TCA Srinivasa Raghavan in which there was a lengthy piece on second hand bookstores. Last Sunday at Abids I happened to find a novel by TCA which is about publishing which is a field I like to read about so I picked up a copy of ‘Goodbye to All That’ by TCA Srinivasa Raghavan that I saw with a seller.
There are a few titles I have many copies of because I cannot resist leaving behind those titles whenever I come across them. ‘Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan is one title that I have picked up at least three copies so far and on Sunday at Abids I picked up my fourth copy not because I was getting it cheap but because I love it and want my friends also to read it. I got it for just fifty rupees.
I had come across nothing but high praise for titles by Olga Tokarczuk on Twitter and elsewhere. I felt that it would be next to impossible to find copies of her books and had not even expected to find them in, of all places, Abids where one gets only second-hand copies. But last Sunday I was shocked to find a nice copy of ‘Flights’ by Olga Tokarczuk with a seller near the GPO. I tried to appear as calm as possible and not show any excitement while picking up the copy to take a good look at it. I was surprised to find that it was an edition for sale in India and the subcontinent only for Rs.499. I got it for Rs.120.
Then in another heap of books selling for Rs.20/ only I saw a copy of a children’s title with a very attractive cover ‘Nagoba and Other Stories’ by Aruna Bhargava that I bought just for the cover alone.
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