The Sunday Haul (on 8-4-2018)

It is hailstorm season now in these parts. There had been more than a couple of days when it had rained in the evening bringing down the temperatures leaving the city cool. Last Sunday was the most unusual Sunday morning in summertime, weather wise. It actually rained in the morning when the normal trend was the rain doing its job in the evenings. However last Sunday morning it started to rain around half past eight and for some time it looked like it would go on raining for a couple of hours. It meant I wouldn’t be able to make it to Abids for browsing on the pavements for books. But fortunately it stopped raining after an hour and all was well with the rest of the day.

I’ve been picking up books on writing since a long time and over the years I have come to own quite a large and also impressive collection of such titles. While reading one of these books I came across a recommendation of ‘Writing Fiction’ by Janet Burroway that I noted down in one of my note books. I haven’t been able to trace that notebook now‘ after finding ‘Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Fiction’ by Janet Burroway at Abids. It is a bulky volume and in the examples were excerpts from novels by known and unknown writers and also some short stories by greats such as Grace Paley (A Man told Me the Story of His Life) and also Lydia Davis (Story) whose titles I am dying to find. I haven’t found a complete book by Lydia Davis so far but have managed to find story collections that had a couple of stories by her. I have no idea how long I have to search before I find something by Lydia Davis. I got this copy for eighty rupees together with another book.

Long after I began collecting cookbooks of all kinds I found, at last, a copy of ‘A Taste of India’ at Abids. It was only a couple of years ago and that was my first copy. Last Sunday I found another copy of ‘A Taste of India: The Definite Guide to Regional Cooking’ by Madhur Jaffrey. This copy had a different cover on which it said ‘Pavilion Great Cooks.’ The print on glossy paper was different and there were dozens of beautiful colour photographs filling up the pages. The copy itself, though looking ancient, was something to behold. I got this book for eighty rupees.

The rest of the haul was made up of three more recipe books. There is nothing much to write about them. See them below here.