The Sunday Haul (on 22-03-2026)

 Last Sunday it was a bit warm after a week of relatively cool weather. My first stop was at Chikkadpally where I found a beautiful copy of 'Tales from Kathasaritsagara' translated by Arshia Sattar. I was looking for something like this, a collection of ancient tales and so grabbed it. I got it for two hundred rupees, a bit high but then it was a beautiful copy. 

Later I reached Abids. There was not much of a crowd as it was the day after Ramzan festival and so some of the sellers at Abids were missing. A few minutes after reaching Abids I found a copy of 'Ake: The Years of Childhood' by Wole Soyinka. It is a memoir of the Nigerian writer, a genre I love to read. I got it for fifty rupees. 

Afterwards I sat in Bench restaurant with two of my bibliophile friends and had a long talk for more than an hour well until lunch time. 

The Sunday Haul (on 15-03-2026)

 It was the usual Sunday morning routine except for a small change. None of the usual friends I meet at Abids turned up so I did the browsing all by myself. Before I reached Abids I got down at Chikkadpally as usual where I found two good titles. 

The first find was a nice copy of 'The Loser' by Thomas Bernhard that had a striking cover. I think I already have some title it not this by Thomas Bernhard that I had found sometime last year. I have to check my notes and confirm it. I got this book for eighty rupees only. With the first find a good title I set off hoping to find more. I just now checked my notes and realized that I had found three titles by Thomas Berhard. One was 'Gargoyles' and the others were 'Gathering Evidence' and also 'Corrections; by Thomas Bernhard and that I had not read them yet. 

The second find was a copy of 'Light at the Edge of the World' by Wade Davis that I knew I had to buy. Not only the cover pulled me to it the fact that it was a sort of travel title by an anthropologist convinced me to buy it. 

I have this habit of buying multiple copies of titles I already have. So when I saw a wonderful and almost brand new copy of 'Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China' by Colin Thubron I picked it up though I have a copy of it on my bookshelf that I can see even as I type this blog post. The earlier copy I had found long back and was a good enough copy though I have yet to read it. I got it for eighty rupees. 

I had seen a lot with a seller that contained quite a few books of history and literature. I had seen them the previous Sunday and had thought I would check again this Sunday. One of the titles I wanted to buy was gone and the other I had thought of buying was a copy of 'History of the Pelopennosian War' by Thucydides that I picked up. I have a faint memory of buying a copy of this same title somewhere a long time back but since I wasn't sure I picked up this copy as well. 

Once again I came across a copy of a book that I had found a long back and that which I had given away after reading it. But when I saw that the copy of 'Road Runner' by Dilip D'Souza that I spotted was a copy signed by the author I picked it up. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 08-03-2026) and The Nagpur Haul

It was a pretty hot Sunday last Sunday in Hyderabad. It is a sign of how hot the coming weeks are going to be since it is not even officially summer yet. However since it has become a difficult habit to shake off I set out for Abids soon after breakfast. The haul last Sunday turned out to be titles I already have on my shelves.  

The previous Sunday I had seen a copy of 'The Imaginary Girlfriend: A Memoir' by John Irving but did not buy it since I had bought a copy long back. I had looked for it during the week as I needed to refer to it for a writing project I was working on but couldn't find it anywhere on my shelves. So last Sunday when I found it at the same place I picked it up. The only difference was that it had been in a Rs.50 the previous Sunday but last Sunday it was in a Rs.30 heap. 

Down the road with another seller at Chikkadpally I spotted a copy of 'From Heaven Lake' by Vikram Seth that too I already have read having found it a couple of years ago. But somehow I couldn't walk away leaving it behind because it was a good copy and so took it. I got this title for fifty rupees only. 

The Haul at Nagpur

Last week I was in Nagpur for two days. A college friend I've known since 1981 had invited me to his son's marriage and warned me that I had to come or else... Anyway, I had been looking for an excuse to leave Hyderabad for a couple of days so this came as a blessing. I was told that there were no proper second-hand bookstores in Nagpur but there were some sellers on the pavements on either side of a flyover at Zero Mile. I decided to check them out and was a bit excited wondering what I would find though I had no high expectations.

On Friday after the marriage was over in the morning I set off for Zero Mile in an electric auto. The driver, an old gentleman, asked me where I was from and I told him I was from Hyderabad. I also told him I was looking for the booksellers. So he kindly stopped at the spot where the sellers had their stalls. I found nothing on one side of the flyover and then crossed over to the other side. In a stall I asked to see inside and they let me in. There was a tall pile of books on a shelf and right on the top I spotted the title 'The Half Known Life' and felt excited when I saw the name 'Pico Iyer' beside it. It was a hardcover copy and somehow I was not aware of this title. 

I felt very lucky finding it and luckier still when I got it for just a hundred and fifty rupees. It was in good condition and I felt glad that I had managed to find a good book in Nagpur. 

The Sunday Haul (on 01-03-2026)

It was a sombre Sunday morning as I woke up to the news of the bombings in Iran. Somehow it was all very disturbing and so in that mood I set out for Abids not really wishing to find anything. I went there just out of habit. It wasn't too hot though we are already in March. Also in the news was the forecast by the weather department that it was going to be a very, very hot summer over here. 

As usual I began with the sellers in Chikkadpally and the first title in the Sunday haul was a hardcover copy of 'India: Social Structure' by M.N. Srinivas that I got for fifty rupees. It is previously published as the first chapter in Gazeteer of India. 

Then at Abids a book with a bright red cover caught my eye. It was a copy of 'Red Star Over India' by Jan Myrdal. The book is an analysis of the Naxalite movement in India by Jan Myrdal who is a Swedish author, leftist-political writer and columnist according to the bio on the back cover of the book. I bought it for the cover alone.

Further on I found a copy of Diary of a Malayali Madman by N. Prabhakaran Tr. Jayasree Kalathil. I haven't heard about Prabhakaran earlier and was curious to know more about the novel and also the author. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

Then the next find was a most interesting title. Only the previous day I was going through my notebooks while working on a writing project. In a notebook I maintained in 1998 I had read about the National Seminar on Travel Writing that I had attended in March 1998 at the University of Hyderabad. I had gone there to listen to Bill Aitken whose books I had read a couple of months earlier. At this session one of the coordinators was Sachidananda Mohanty, the academic. Incidentally the book I found last Sunday 'Travel Writing and the Empire' ed Sachidananda Mohanty was a product of the proceedings of the seminar. I was surprised to read that the Seminar was held in 1999 when in fact it was in 1998. I don't know how they got it wrong. 

But the most interesting title of the day was the slim copy of 'Life and Learning'  that I spotted with a seller near Bata. on the cover was a shelf of book that caught my attention. It was a textbook meant for the I Year UG Bcom/BCom/BBA  students of Karnatak University according to the blurb on the back cover. It had some wonderful essays and poems. I was quite excited to find it also had an extract from 'Decolonising the Mind' by Ngugi wa Thiong' O that I had been trying to find since a long time. This slim and lovely copy with wonderful print was by Orient Blackswan

The Sunday Haul (on 22-02-2026)

There seems to be some kind of book fatigue settling in inside me of late. After buying a lot of books at Kolkata and Guwahati a couple of weeks ago and many books every Sunday at Abids since the beginning of 2026 I seem to be realizing that I may not be reading all the books I want to read. It was with this sense of fatigue that I set out for Abids last Sunday praying that I would not find any good book to buy. 

Unfortunately, at my first stop at Chikkadpally itself I spotted a title that I wanted to read. It was a nice copy of 'A Book of Memory' by Sudhir Kakar. I had read one of his titles recently and wanted to read this book too so I bought it. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

About six months back I had spotted a collection of short stories by Vijaydhan Detha about whom I had read a couple of months before. But somehow I did not buy it and one reason was that the seller asked for an astronomical sum for it. I was annoyed by his attitude and went away without buying it. Later I regretted it and told myself I would buy it the following Sunday. Unfortunately it was missing that added to my regret. I looked for it every Sunday hoping it would somehow surface again. Surface again did it last Sunday the copy of 'Dohri Zindagi' by Vijaydhan Detha that I grabbed as soon as I spotted it at a seller opposite the GPO. I don't know when I will be able to read it and if I begin reading it I don't know how long it will take me to finish the dozen plus stories in it because I read Hindi very slowly word by word. 

The Sunday Haul (on 15-02-2026)

 

Last Sunday it showed that summer was round the corner as it was warmer than usual in the morning. So I set out for Abids with a water bottle in my bag and a cap on my head. I was not aware that I was going to make some wonderful finds including a title by an author I was searching for since a long time. As usual I started with the seller at Chikkadpally. The first find was a beautiful copy of 'Nation of Fools' by Balraj Khanna that had a stunning cover with a painting on it. I already have a copy of this very funny book that I found a long time ago but it had a different cover. Either way I wouldn't have not bought this beautiful book that I got for eighty rupees. 

Next stop was Abids but before commencing my browsing I sat in Grand Hotel and had a couple of crisp chota samosas and a cup of Irani chai and marveled at my luck finding the copy of 'Nation of Fools' by Balraj Khanna. 

A few minutes later I found a hardcover copy of 'The Case for Reason vol -2: A Scientific Enquiry Into Belief' by Narendra Dabholkar that appeared very interesting. Narendra Dabholkar was shot to death by assailants who found his views on religion hard to digest and so they thought they could stop spreading his views by killing him. What a tragedy it was!

Sometimes it pays to be patient. A long time back I read an article in which Stephen King said that he loved David Goodis' books and though I found many books by authors he had written about I was frustrated that I couldn't find books by David Goodis anywhere. I looked for his novels in the second-hand bookstores in Bengaluru and also here in Hyderabad. I thought I might find them in Kolkata in the stores in College Street. But I was unsuccessful. I searched online but the price was too high. I wanted to find a title by Goodis on my own at Abids and knew it would turn up one day. That day was last Sunday when at last I spotted the name 'David Goodis' on a cover that made my pulse race. 

I saw a copy of 'The Burglar' by David Goodis with a seller where I found quite a few good titles in the past. I picked it up, my hands shaking with an unusual excitement, to look at it closely. It was indeed David Goodis on the cover and the book had all its pages intact except there was a small tear on the top of the front cover. But it did not matter as I felt I had found a rare gem. I got it for just seventy rupees whereas online the price was around thousand rupees. 

With a heart full of joy at finding something I had been searching for long I thought of going home but I continued with the browsing and came to a seller where I found a copy of 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' by Gertrude Stein. While paying I asked the youngster where his dad was since I had not seen him for the past couple of months. When he said his father had died three months back I felt a sense of loss. The boy did not show any sign of sorrow and told me in a casual way that his father died of a heart attack. But I could see that he was struggling not to cry. He told me he was his father's only child, and was in 10+2 and said he would either do a degree or engineering if he got a good rank. I felt very bad for not asking about his father when I did not see him for many weeks. Last I had seen him was at the Hyderabad Book Fair in December. 

The last title I found was a copy of 'Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1933-1945' Saul Friedlander. 

THE HAULS AT KOLKATA AND GUWAHATI

Almost everyone who knows me, especially my siblings know that I am dimwitted. But what they do not know is that occasionally some clever ideas strike me. One such idea struck me sometime in December when I read about the Kolkata International Book Fair in January-February 2026. I had been long dreaming of going to Kolkata to check out the books over there but somehow I couldn't go for various reasons. But now retired with a lot of time on hand I wanted to go but couldn't go alone by myself though it was what I wanted to dod. If I told my family that I wanted to go along there would be a lot of sulking so I put my clever idea into action. I told them I would take them to Kolkata to see the famous Kali temples at Kolkata and also to the Kamakhya temple at Guwahati. The idea was hailed as a brillian one (also an original one) and was immediately approved. It was then I enlightened them about the book fair at Kolkata and my wish to check it out. To cut a long story short sometime last month we landed in Kolkat on a Friday afternoon. 

After meeting a distant relative we left for the Kolkata International Book Fair and spent about two hours there. I have been to the Delhi World Book Fair a long time back but haven't seen anything like the one at Kolkata. I was awed by the size of the whole thing. There were almost thousand bookstalls that were artistically designed and crowded with book lovers unlike the dinky stalls in the Hyderabad Book Fair. However I was soon disappointed to discover that almost all the stalls were selling only books in Bangla, and there were very few stalls that had English books. I entered the Sahitya Akademy stall and found a copy of 'Bhabani Bhattacharya' by Shantinath K. Desai that I got for only fifteen rupees!

The next day was the first visit to College Street on Saturday in the evening. I found a copy of 'Storytellers @ Work', a Katha publication with one seller and a copy of 'The Art of Meditation' by Matthieu Ricardo. I oculdn't find anything interesting so we left as it was getting late and we had more than an hour's drive to our hotel. In fact the traffic was so bad that we reached the hotel after two and hours on the road. 

On Sunday morning we were back at College Street just around noon. Once again we sat in India Coffee House and had snacks and coffee before I set out along to look around the sellers. Sadly, I was disappointed to see that only a handful of sellers had their books on the pavement. But I was lucky as I managed to find some wonderful titles. 

The first find on Sunday at College Street was a beautiful hardcover copy of 'In Praise of Good Bookstores' by Jeff Deutsch that I grabbed as soon as I spotted it with a seller who had his small store open. This is the third book on bookstores/booksellers that I had found in the past few weeks. 

The next find was a copy of 'Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris' by Graham Dobb that was a fat volume that would take me weeks to read. But I bought it anyhow since it appeared very interestting and also, was a Picador title. 

I never seem to find stop finding books on Africa that I devour like anything. At College Street my next find was a copy of 'Into Africa' by Martin Dugard. It is a 'dramatic retelling' of the Stanley-Livingstone' story , and the cover had a blurb by Bill Bryson. I do not now remember how much I paid for it but it is worth whatever I paid for it.

Then I spotted a hardcover copy of 'Indian English Literature: A Critical Casebook' by Ramendranath Datta, Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal and Kanwar Dinesh Singh and edited by Suman Chakraborty that was another fat tome but seems very interesting as it had several essays on many novels that I have already read.

The next and last find was a copy of 'The Disordered Mind' by Eric R. Kandel that I found irresistible for some reason. On the back over I Read that Dr.Kandel was a Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist which was another reason not to leave this book behind. 

Then again we had lunch at India Coffee House  and went on a tour of the city in a WBTDC bus and visited a few places. Later in the evening we went to the Book Fair for a last visit. Once again I dropped in at the Sahitya Akademy stall to pick up three titles that I had seen on the previous visit but had not bought. 

I picked up a copy of the book 'Nissim Ezekiel' by Shakuntala Bhavani as I've been reading Ezekiel's poety since my college days. 

I also picked up the monograph on 'Bhagwati Charan Varma' by Shrilal Shukla though I vaguely remember reading about Verma somewhere. I picked it up becaue it was by Shrilal Shukla whose 'Raag Darbari' is one of my favorite titles.

I. had seen a similar book on the poet Agha Shahid Ali on the previous visit but I couldn't find it anymore. I was a bit disappointed that I missed it. Later while going around I spotted a 'Rare and Old Books stall. I eagerly went in but found nothing interesting except a basic title on Africa. The stall keeper first said three hundred and fifty rupees for it but later claimed he had said five hundred and fifty rupees which was when I kept it back and walked out of the stall. 

My last visit was to the stall of The Hindu Group I was able to locate at last. I saw a copy of 'The Noorani Records' in the books they had on display and bought it. I had not able to find a single title by AG Noorani especially his books on Kashmir and Hyderabad but I was glad I was able to find 'The Noorani Records' that I am sure has a lot of good essays by Noorani. It did not come cheap though as I had to shell out something more than six hundred rupees for it. 

The next day, a Monday, we flew out to Guwahati and landed around two in the afternoon. After lunch we raced to go on the Brahmaputra cruise before reaching the hotel in the evening. It was an hour's cruise in the vast Brahmaputra river watching the sunset and munching on the snacks that were served while old Hindi romantic songs played. 

On Tuesday in the morning we visited the Kamakhya tempe and were able to come out within ten minutes though people had warned us it would take somewhere around three to six hours to have a glimpse of the deity. Then we set out for lunch and afterwards shopping at Fancy/Phansi bazaar that I was told was the place to shop for stuff. On the way I saw a row of bookshops with 'Old Books' written on a few of their boards. They appeared like bookshops selling textbooks of NCERT, CBSE and the like. These stores I later realized were not far from Brahmaputra Hotel where we had a simple lunch. After lunch I told my family to go ahead with their shopping while I decided to check out the bookstores on the road called Pan Bazaar.

I had been looking for a copy of 'Understanding India's Northeast: A Reporter's Journal' by Rupa Chinai that I had read about somewhere. I had narrowly missed buying a copy that came up on a sale on a WhatsApp group a couple of months ago and desperately wanted to get hold of a copy and was determined to search everywhere for it.

At one of the bookstores on Pan Bazaar road I found a stack of old books tied up with a slender rope and kept on the pavement outside the store. I checked the titles and found a copy of 'An Indian Summer' by James Cameron. I have a copy of this wonderful book about India in the 50s and 60s by a foreign journalist but decided to buy the copy I saw in Pan Bazaar. 

In another store on the opposite side of the road there was a similar stack of old books tied up with a rope and kept on the pavement in front of the store. They had more stacks inside the store kept on the floor. I went through all the titles and found a small treasure trove of travel titles.

I picked up a copy of 'The Curry Coast' by Binoo K. Johan and also a copy of 'Loitering with Intent: Diary of a Happy Traveler by Ritu Menon that I thought was all I wanted to buy. But my eyes spotted the best find of the day and it was a Harvill edition of 'The Snow Leopard' by Peter Matthiessen that I immediately pulled out of the stack. All these four books did not cost me more than five hundred rupees in all. 

I decided to try my luck at another store and showed the cover of 'Understanding Indian's Northeast: A Reporter's Journal' that was on my phone to the person at store. He told me I might be able to find it at 'Modern' across the road. I crossed the road but couldn't locate 'Modern' at first and was about to go back when I decided to take a few more steps ahead and was glad I did because I spotted an ancient looking board above a store that saidd 'The Modern Book Dept- Largest Collection of Books and Maps on North East India' that had my pulse racing. I thought I would be able to find Rupa Chinai's book in the store.

The elderly assistant in the store told me the book was not available but nevertheless took my name and number to note down and contact me in case a copy turned up. The owner, an elderly and distinguished looking person, who was on the mobile phone talking with someone, turned his attention to me and said he knew the author and might be able to get hold of a copy for me. He also said there was a rare book section inside and asked me if I wanted to take a look. I was sorely tempted but it was getting late and I had to leave. But before leaving I picked up a copy of 'India's North-East in Flames' by VIK Sarin that had a vivid cover. 

The haul at Guwahati was an unexpected and lucky one as I had not expected to come across bookstores and had also not thought of asking about second-hand bookstores around. I was pleased with the titles I found and doubly pleased that all the five titles in the haul were travel titles. In all I picked up sixteen books on the Kolkata-Guwahati trip. 

The Sunday Haul (on 08-02-2026)

 I hadn't been to Abids since the past two Sundays. On January 25th I was at the Hyderabad Literature Festival so couldn't go to Abids to look at the books on the pavements. On 1st of February which was a Sunday I was in Kolkata. Though I bought many books on the Sunday at Kolkata I somehow missed being at Abids. So last Sunday it was with a lot of excitement that I set out for Abids eager to meet my bibliophile friends and also pick up not more than one book as I had returned from a trip to Kolkata and Guwahati with sixteen books. 

The first find was a copy of 'my temporary son' by Timeri N. Murari that was his account of accommodating an orphan for less than a year before handing him over to his adoptive parents. It sounded very interesting and though I haven't read any of Timeri N. Murari's books I decided to read this title. I got it for fifty rupees.

Later I met two friend sand chatted with them about books for a while in Star of India. Afterwards I set out to look at the fare of the other sellers. I found a copy of 'An Orderly Man' by Dirk Bogarde, volume three of his autobiography. I had found a copy of this a long time ago and had found it a beautifully written autobiography. Though I also found the other two volumes of his autobiography I did not read them. I do not know where I have kept the earlier copy so decided to buy this as it was in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees only.

In the same heap my eyes fell on another intriguing title- 'Nostalgia Isn't What It Used to Be' by Simone Signoret. I was attracted to the title and also the photo of the author on the cover staring pensively. I read that Signoret was an actress and it was her memoir of her acting career when she met several famous actors and actresses. There was high praise for the book on the back of the cover and so this, and the fact that it was a Penguin title pushed me into buying it. Coincidentally the Dirk Bogarde title is also a Penguin title. 

Then on the way home I got down at Chikkadpally to look at what the three sellers had spread out on the pavement. I saw a beautiful, almost new copy of 'Baburnama: Journal of Emperor Babur' with a stunning cover that I instantly decided to buy at any price. It was translated by Annette Susannah Beveridge from the Chagtai Turkish, and abridged, edited and introduced by Dilip Hiro. Coincidentally again this was also a Penguin title. However the seller asked for only a hundred and fifty rupees for it. All four titles I found last Sunday are Penguin titles! 

THE HAUL AT THE HLF 2026

 

Like every year this year too I attended the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2026 on all three days as I have retired from my job and have a lot of free time on hand. Last year I could attend only on two days as I was still working. This year too the HLF venue was the Sattva Knowledge City, quite far from where I live. Since it was in the zone where IT companies are so numerous that almost every building houses IT firms. So everything about HLF, almost everything, involved IT. For example the free shuttle from the Raidurg Metro station to Sattva was run by some firm that wanted you to download its app and fill numerous details like your name, mobile number, email ID, name of company you work, location of your home and such questions all for a five minute ride! I got down from the shuttle and took a Rapido bike on all the three days. 

Next IT thing was at the food court where you had to scan a QR code to order anything even the humble chai, pay online and then receive another QR code that you had to show to the joint who will scan it and then give your order. Boy, are they making things difficult for everyone at the HLF. One elderly who wanted to order lunch cried out in despair that she did not know how to do it. 

Even the registration process involved another long online process. This was the painful part, using IT for everything. Thank god one could go to the loo without anything involving IT. But who knows next year they might ask you to scan before you enter the loo. 

Anyway, what I noticed was that the crowd did not appear to be what it was last year when there were simply swarms of people at every session. Also, many of the top authors were missing. On the first day I was at the session ‘Freedom, Control and the News’ with Dhanya Rajendran (TNM) and Pamela Philipose on the panel moderated by Vinod Pavarala. It was interesting to know how digital news media functions. After lunch I listened to Samanth Subramanian talk about ‘Equator Magazine’ that he is associated with. Then I sat in the session ‘Prioritizing Palestine’ with Stanly Johny and Sarah Zia on the panel moderated by mana Sunita Reddy. Stanly Johny’s columns in The Hindu are wonderfully written with a lot of analysis about the situation in the Middle East. Since I had to take the family out somewhere in the evening I had to leave early. 

On Sunday, the second day of HLF I sat through a few sessions and what I enjoyed was Kaveri Nambisan’s talk with Aparna Rayprol. I had taken along the copy of ‘The Truth (Almost) About Bharat’ her debut novel to get it signed by her but I couldn’t. Also interesting was the session on ‘Resistant Readings’ with Kavita Kane and Volga. 

The session ‘Many Ramayanas, Many Lessons’ by Anand Neelakantan turned out to be a very interesting one with Anand Neelakantan making the audience break out in splits with his witty replies and self-deprecating humour. But the session I liked very much was ‘India and Her Futures’ with Vijay Kumar Tadakamalla (the man behind HLF) in conversation with Gopal Krishna Gandhi who kept the audience enthralled with his anecdotes. 

On the last day, on Republic Day, a Monday I sat through just two sessions. The first was the session ‘Murder Most Mysterious’ with Manjiri Prabhu and Reuben Dass talking with Chilakamari Savitha. The next session I attended was the Ajay Gandhi Memorial Valedictory- ‘The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India’ by Gopalkrishna Gandhi in conversation with Bakhtiar Dadabhoy. Once again it was a full house to listen to the statesman reeling out anecdote after anecdote that had everyone laughing. 

At the bookstore in HLF I picked up a copy of ‘Homeless on Google Earth’ by Mukul Kesavan. It had fifty eight short essays on diverse topics like books, literary launches, politics, personalities and other topics. I have started reading the book already on the way home in the Metro. 

I also met some of my friends and had long talks with them during the lunch and at tea. It felt good talking books, writers and literature in a literary festival. It is a wait of a year for the next year’s edition of HLF. 

The Sunday Haul (on 18-01-2026)

 One of my new year resolutions was to buy fewer books at Abids and elsewhere as the house was overflowing with books I am yet to read. But last Sunday once again I had to break the resolutions as I found four books I couldn’t resist buying. It was warmer for this time of the year last Sunday as I set out for Abids.

The hauls last Sunday were in two sets. The first set I found was two volumes of Katha Prize Stories. I found nice copies of ‘Katha Prize Stories: Best of the 90’s’ edited by Geeta Dharmarajan and also ‘Katha Prize Stories: Vol 2’ edited by Geeta Dharmarajan. 

‘Katha Prize Stories: Best of the 90’s’ had fifteen stories, the best of the previous ten volumes chosen by a panel of writers. Some of the stories were by M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Sundara Ramaswamy, Dilip Chitre and others. 

‘Katha Prize Stories: Vol 2’ had nineteen stories and some of them were by Jayamohan, Vivek Shanbag, Gopinath Mohanty and others. One of the stories in this volume ‘Little Earthquakes’ by M.T.Vasudevan Nair is in the above ‘Best of the 90’s’ volume. 

Somehow I hadn’t come across many books by Indian booksellers so far but last Sunday I found two titles that were by Indian booksellers though I was not familiar with their names. The first title I found was a copy of ‘Struggle All the Way: Story of a Book Seller’ by D.R. Krishna Murthy that I got for just fifty rupees. 

Later after an hour-long chat about books, movies, travel with two friends in ‘Bench Café’ I started for home and spotted a copy of ‘A Life with Books: An Autobiography’ by Balakrishna Marar