The Sunday Haul (on 05.07.2020)

All the books I had seen the previous Sunday at Abids and that I planned to buy this Sunday were gone, not surprisingly. Only the Brit Bennett title as well as the Herta Mueller title were on the shelf but I had to skip buying them because I had spotted other titles that seemed more interesting. The first book I bought was a copy of ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton with a cover that I did not have on the two copies I had picked up long back. I loved the cover on this copy and bought it for fifty rupees only.

The second title was one by someone I had read about only recently. I saw a nice copy, almost new, of ‘Oranges are Not the Only Fruit’ by Jeanette Winterson and I immediately knew I had to buy it. So in it went into the haul. But I had to pay a hundred rupees for it.

Though I read only his columns I have not read any book by Hanif Kureshi so far for the simple reason that I have not come across any of them. So when I saw a hardcover copy of ‘My Ear at His Heart’ by Hanif Kureshi, a memoir, I grabbed it without a second thought.

A couple of years ago I discovered James Salter after reading about him in The Hindu. I was on the lookout for ‘Burning the Days’ but instead I had found a copy of ‘A Sport and A Pastime’ with a tattered cover. It was a great find I thought until I came across a copy of ‘Burning the Days’ itself sometime later. After reading these books I decided to find and read everything Salter had written. Last Sunday I spotted another copy of ‘A Sport and A Pastime’ on top of one of several piles of children’s books haphazardly arranged on a wooden plank on the pavement near Bata in Abids. It had a different cover but I nearly jumped when I saw it. I got it for fifty rupee only. This copy was a different edition but at least the cover was in a good condition. The bonus was that there was a wonderful picture of James Salter on the back.

But there were a couple of titles I missed picking up. There was a hardcover copy of ‘Misery’ by Stephen King with an interesting photograph of the author on the back of the cover that I should have picked up but did not. Next Sunday I am going to pick it up along with a beautiful copy of ‘War Poems’ by Siegfried Sassoon that I saw with the same seller.