The Sunday Haul (on 13-04-2025)

It is heating up here in Hyderabad with the temperatures around 40 degrees in the day time. Though I had reached early with the intention of quickly doing the rounds and leaving early before it got too hot the sellers had not yet spread their books on the pavements. So I lingered for a long time checking out the books on the pavements. The first book I picked up was a nice copy of ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ by John Kennedy Toole that I have been seeing with the same seller for quite a few weeks now. Since no one seemed to be interested in it I picked it up.

 

The next find was yet another title on writing. I guess I have around two hundred and fifty titles on writing on my shelves and anyone with even a bit of common sense wouldn’t have thought of buying another title on writing. But that’s what I did when I saw the beautiful copy of ‘How to Write’ edited by Philip Oltermann and was from ‘the guardian’ newspaper group. I got this British Library discard for a hundred rupees. The light green cover with an ancient typewriter was so attractive I would have bought it even if I had no intention of learning to write. 

I just finished reading ‘The Shock Doctrine’ by Naomi Klein who had mentioned Jeffrey Sach’s name quite a few times. Though I had heard his name earlier I had not found any book by him until last Sunday when I spotted a beautiful copy of ‘The End to Poverty’ by Jeffrey Sachs that I instantly grabbed. 

The next find was a copy of a book that I already have. I had found a copy of ‘Act One’ by Moss Hart a long time back and had also read this memoir of a playwright. I liked how Moss Hart took to writing plays and when I found a hardbound copy a couple of years ago I had picked it up. When I saw another paperback copy of ‘Act One’ in a heap of books selling for twenty rupees I picked it up.