The Sunday Haul (on 07/03/2021)

Not a week passes for me without doing something stupid, sometimes really stupid things I tend to regret later. Last Sunday at Abids while checking out two books I recalled two stupid things I did long back. Many years ago I had seen a copy of ‘Sunlight on a Broken Column’ by Attia Hosain that I thought did not deserve attention. After I read about this title somewhere I regretted my act of ignoring the copy of ‘Sunlight on a Broken Column’ by Attia Hosain that I could have bought. The pain of not having bought it lingered and last Sunday it became reignited when I saw a copy of ‘Phoenix Fled’ by Attia Hosain. At first glance I thought it was a novel but when I looked inside I saw that it was a collection of twelve short stories. The cover was very attractive and it also had an introduction by Anita Desai. This book was published originally in 1953 but the copy I found was an 1993 edition that I got for hundred rupees.

With the same seller who puts up his books on makeshift wooden shelves and some on a plastic sheet spread on the ground I spotted a copy of ‘Speedboat’ by Renata Adler. I remembered reading the name ‘Renata Adler’ somewhere recently but even otherwise I would have picked up this book that had a blurb by John Updike. I got it for hundred rupees which was a pretty steep price but I was in a different mood so I paid up and added it to my haul.

Then came the second occasion to feel the pain of past foolishness. This was an unbelievable act of foolishness. Years ago, in 2012, to be exact I had bought a copy of ‘The Savage Detectives’ by Robert Bolano that remained unread on my bookshelf for a long time because it appeared too bulky. I don’t understand why but I gave away the book to someone and forgot all about it until I began to come across this title being mentioned by several people on Twitter and elsewhere. I realized I had been stupid to have given it away. Luckily, I saw another copy of ‘The Savage Detectives’ by Robert Bolano that was in quite good condition and also came cheap at only hundred rupees which was far less than the two hundred and fifty rupees I had paid for the copy I found in 2012.

Every Sunday after returning home from Abids I take pictures of the covers of the books I had picked up at Abids and post it on Twitter. Usually these tweets get about twenty likes in all but the tweet last week about the above three titles got an unusually high 38 likes and also a couple of replies which were about Renata Adler’s ‘Speedboat’ and also ‘The Savage Detectives.’