The Sunday Haul (on 10-03-2019)

Last Sunday was one of the hottest days so far this year with the temperature touching almost 37⁰ C that had me thinking twice before venturing out. But the pull of Abids is so strong that I decided to go wearing a cap on the head and a water bottle in hand. It was a good thing I went because I found five wonderful titles.

The first book I found was a copy of ‘Much Depends on Dinner’ by Margaret Visser that was too interesting to ignore. It is about corn on the cob, chicken with rice, lettuce salad and ice cream and a lot about these food items. The cover seemed a bit soiled but it only appeared like that. I got this book for seventy rupees.

One writer I discovered long back was William Trevor who I found to be one of the most wonderful writers I’ve ever read. I do not remember the title of the book but I had found a copy of ‘After Rain’ soon afterwards. I found another beautiful copy of ‘After Rain’ by William Trevor at Abids last Sunday. I got this collection of short stories by William Trevor for just thirty rupees.

I cannot ignore any book with the Penguin logo on the cover so when I saw a copy of ‘The Night of the Twelfth’ by Michael Gilbert I picked it up. Not only did it have the Penguin logo, also there was high praise for it on the back cover. I read that this title was the ‘Winner of Current Crime’s Silver Cup for the best British crime novel of 1976.’ The thing that clinched it for me was that it was a crime fiction title so I HAD to buy it.

With the same seller from where I bought ‘The Night of the Twelfth’ by Michael Gilbert I found a copy of ‘Company Limited’ by Sankar. It was another Indian title that seemed to have been published sometime in the fifties. On the front cover was a picture of Sharimila Tagore which explained what I read on the back cover that it was made into a movie by Satyajit Ray, the most acclaimed Indian movie maker. I noticed that this was published by Sangam Books, a division of Orient Longman which was something I hadn’t heard about before. But I think this was the find of the day.

Just when I was about to call it a day at Abids I spotted a small book. It was a copy of ‘From the Four Corners’ by Jan Morris, a Penguin 60’s title that contained essays about four – Delhi, Manhattan, Sydney and Vienne. The title of the essay on Delhi is ‘Mrs Gupta Never Rang’ that sounds very interesting. These four essays have been taken from her collection ‘Among the Cities’ that’s now on my ‘to read’ list. I picked up this small book from a pile of books selling for twenty rupees.