The Sunday Haul (on 31-12-2017)

This is the first post of 2018, the new year, and it is about the haul of books at Abids on the last Sunday and the last day of 2017, the old year. With a haul of 186 books so far during the year I was not exactly inclined to add to the tally so I decided I would not go to Abids because I would return with at least one book if I went. However after breakfast my feet grew itchy and I started for Abids. I returned home with three nice titles I found there.

The first title I found was a paperback copy of ‘A Sort of Life’ by Graham Greene, his autobiography. It appeared to be a copy belonging to a library. I already have a copy of the same title. I had found a hardcover copy without the jacket sometime in August, 2013. I do not remember if I have read it or not but I did not want to let go of the copy I saw last Sunday so I took it. It came pretty cheap at only thirty rupees.

I really have no idea what made me buy the copy of ‘The Essential Runner’ by John Hang that I saw. I don’t run and haven’t ever run in my life. I am always eager to know about such things so I must have picked it up. It was mine for just thirty rupees.

The last find of the year was a beautiful, almost brand new copy of ‘The Foreigner’ by Arun Joshi, one of my favourite writers. It was in a stack of books being sold for fifty rupees and so I grabbed it since the original cost is and one cannot get this book for anything more than a hundred rupees. I must have bought more than half a dozen copies of this title, some of different editions. I give away copies of this title to whoever wants to read a good book by an Indian writer.

While taking stock of all the books I had picked up in the last year I realized I had missed a title that I had picked up sometime last month. I was passing through Lakdikapul and happened to notice the board of the ‘Unique second hand book store.’ I stopped to take a quick look and found an old copy of ‘The Beloved’ by Oroob’ aka PC Kuttikrishnan, the famous Malayali writer. I read on the cover that it was made into a movie also and had also won the Sahitya Akademi award. Such a wonderful book and I got it for just forty rupees. I don’t know if the small size of the book and its ancient world look must have made the people in the store think it wasn’t worth more than forty rupees.
With this book the total number of books I’ve bought this year comes to 190.