The Sunday Haul (on 17-12-2017)

Stephen King is one of those authors who write about how they came to write the book in the introduction and I love reading the tale behind the book. Last Sunday I came across a copy of ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King that had such an introduction. I realized I had not read ‘Salem’s Lot’ and picked it up for fifty rupees. Later sitting in the ‘Grand Hotel’ and sipping tea I read the introduction. Stephen King writes about how he got the idea for ‘Salem’s Lot’ from ‘Dracula’ and other vampire comics of that time.

The Sunday before last I had seen an English translation of an Assamese novel that I did not buy. One reason why I hesitated to buy it was that I did not know who the writer was though the book was a Sahitya Akademi publication. Last Sunday when I saw it again I looked it over carefully. ‘Longing for Sunshine’ by Syed Abdul Malik is the English translation of his novel in Assamese ‘Surya Mukheer Swapna.’ The translation was done by Pradip Acharya. Syed Abdul Malik is a famous Assamese author who won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1972.

The ‘World Telugu Conference’ was going on in Hyderabad and I had read in the papers about a Telugu book exhibition that was a part of the conference. Since the main venue, LB Stadium, was not far away from Abids I decided to pay a visit. I had studied Telugu in school and I can read and write in Telugu though not so well. It was one of my desires to read some classic Telugu titles and though I had this desire for long I had not mustered up the courage to buy Telugu books and read them. A few years back I had managed to lay my hands on ‘Chillara Devullu’ by Dasarathi Ranga Charyulu but I haven’t read it yet. At the book show in WTC I saw a copy of a book I had long wanted to read. The title of the book felt like it could be my own story. When I saw ‘Asamarthuni Jeevitha Yathra’ by Gopichand I bought it. For the past several years I have been making resolutions of reading either a Telugu or a Hindi book a year but haven’t been able to do it. I want to read at least one Telugu novel this year so I have already started reading ‘Asamarthuni Jeevitha Yathra.’ It is just 124 pages long and I hope to finish it before the end of the month.