Despite the festival shopping spree disturbing the second hand book sellers at Abids from their usual spots some of the managed to hold on to their original spots making it easy for me to end up with a nice haul of six interesting titles. In the list of travel classics mentioned in ‘Lonely Planet’s Travel Writing’ by Don George the ‘The Road to Oxiana’ by Robert Byron features. I had always thought it would be some ancient book that would be impossible to get hold of anywhere so I did not pay much attention to finding more about it online. Imagine my surprise and utter delight when I spotted a copy of the same title at Abids last Sunday. The copy I found was published in 2007 and had an introduction by Colin Thubron. I paid a hundred rupees for it. This is another wonderful addition to my collection of travel literature classics.
Next I spotted a book that seemed very old and much read with top corners of the last few pages nibbled away as if by rats. It was a copy of ‘The Appointment’ by Leone Antonio Viola and on the cover page it said that the novel was made into a movie starring Omar Sharif and Anouk Aimee. But when I read on the back cover that the screenplay was by James Salter and the movie was directed by Sydney Lumet I instantly decided to buy it. I’ve already started reading it and I am very impressed at the pace at which the novel moves propelled by the simple sentences. However, after I finished reading it today I found that it had a sad ending.
The next three finds were cookbooks. One good find was a nice, hardbound copy of ‘English Bread and Yeast Cookery’ by Elizabeth David that I bought though I have no plans of baking bread or anything like that now or in the future. I bought it because it looked too good to let go though I had to shell out a hundred rupees for it. The next cookbook was a copy of Potatoes- 101 Quick, Easy & Delicious Recipes’ by Rajni Khurana, another title that I bought just for the cover alone. I got this for forty rupees.
The last find was a small book, something that looked like it was published in the 70’s and seemed quite attractive judging by the cover. It was a copy of ‘Indian Cuisine: Dal & Roti’ by Vimla Patil. I got this book for just twenty rupees.
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