The Sunday Haul (on 06-02-2022)

Not very long back, in fact after reading ‘Balkan Ghosts’ by Robert D. Kaplan sometime last year, I developed a desire to know more about what happened in other parts of the world, and what is happening now. In short, history and geo-politics is what interests me of late. Fortunately I found more such books by other writers most of them journalists. Though I haven’t read all such books that I‘ve managed to buy I am glad I had decided to read such titles because it increases my understanding of the events in different parts of the world.  Each such title that I read makes me want to read more such books so I buy all such books whenever I come across them.

Last Sunday at Abids I spotted a mammoth book and at first I was hesitant to even look at it. But when I looked at the cover I decided to buy it though the first few pages were damaged a bit. It was a copy of ‘The Great War for Civilization-The Conquest of the Middle East’ by Robert Fisk. Right away I knew it was a great title and the blurb on the cover seemed to strengthen my feeling.

Sometime ago I had been lucky to find a beautiful copy of ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius that I now cannot find in my shelves. I do not remember reading it but I feel that I was lucky to find it. I had read about it in ‘English August’ by Upamanyu Chatterjee in which the main character refers to it. Also very recently, last month in fact, I had found a title in the ‘Penguin Books Great Ideas’ series, small books that easily fit in a small bag and very convenient to read while travelling. It was a copy of ‘Why I Write’ by George Orwell that I bought for a hundred rupees at Abids. At Abids again last Sunday I came across a beautiful copy of ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius with a cover I couldn’t take my eyes off and bought it.

In the past few years I must have bought more than half a dozen copies of ‘The Art of Living’ by Epictetus that I gave away to friends and others. Somehow I am very attracted to this beautiful book and when I saw another copy at Abids last Sunday I couldn’t resist buying it. I got it for fifty rupees only.

I don’t really know why but I keep buying several copies of a few titles that I liked. I also buy copies of some books I haven’t read. One such book is ‘An End to Suffering’ by Pankaj Mishra that I found some time ago. This is another title I haven’t read yet I bought another copy I saw last Sunday at Abids. The reason why I bought it was that it was a hardcover copy that was for sale for just fifty rupees. It was in good condition so I picked it up.