The Sunday Haul (on 04-11-2018)

More than half the regular shops at Abids were open than was the case last Sunday displacing the second hand book sellers who usually sold their wares on the pavement before these stores. Not that it made any difference to me, because I managed to find some really interesting titles during my couple of hours’ browsing before the shoppers trooped in.

A few years ago I had found a tattered copy of ‘Travels with a Donkey’ by RL Stevenson that had many termite holes in it but nevertheless I bought it because I haven’t found the book till then. Last Sunday I found a better copy of the same title that was published in 1955 and bought it for thirty rupees.

I became a big fan of Ross Thomas after finding one of his titles out of pure accident in a heap of books at Abids a long time back and thereafter the other titles by him appeared one by one. But the Ross Thomas titles I most desperately wanted to find were ‘Missionary Stew’, ‘The Cold War Swap’ and ‘The Seersucker Whipsaw.’ Last Sunday I happened to glance at a heap of books I don’t really care to look at because they are all Mills & Boons titles and other obscure titles, I got a thrill when I saw a book that lay askew. It was a copy of ‘Missionary Stew’ by Ross Thomas and I grabbed it like it was a brick of gold. It was a hardcover library copy with the jacket intact that I got for just twenty rupees. Inside the stamps said it was from Sandpoint-Bonner County Library, Idaho and another stamp said it was purchased from the estate of Juanita Rhodes. Whatever its origins it looked like a first edition from Simon & Schuster, New York.

The next find was a nice copy of ‘Dave Barry’s Money Secrets’ by Dave Barry that I purchased without a second thought because I cannot resist anything by Dave Barry. I already have a copy of this title but I bought it because there are many I know who haven’t yet discovered how funny Dave Barry is.

The last find of the day was at Chikkadpally. I found a nice copy of ‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison that I had missed buying sometime ago at Abids. It hadn’t been a good enough copy so I had let it be but the copy I found last Sunday was in a fine condition so I bought it. It cost me seventy rupees.