The Sunday Haul (on 20-11-2022)

In the two hours that I was at Abids last Sunday before going for a family function I managed to find three nice titles. I have been always interested in Ireland and its writers so when I saw a copy of ‘Jiving at the Crossroads’ by John W

Only a couple of Sundays ago I had found a title ‘Ai Ladki’ by Krishna Sobti that I am yet to read so when I saw another title by her I wondered whether to buy it. But this hesitation did not last two seconds before I picked up the hardcover copy of ‘Sunflowers of the Dark’ by Krishna Sobti for eighty rupees.

I spotted a book with a striking cover and after I picked it up I saw that is was a copy of ‘Ayyankali- A Dalit Leader of Organic Protest’ by M. Nisar & Meena Kandaswamy. I had read a bit about Ayyankali before and bought this book hoping to know more. I got this book for fifty rupees. It is a short book and I want to read it one of these days. 

Since a couple of weeks I had been seeing a copy of ‘Saint Joan of Arc’ by Vita Sackville West, a Penguin title that I wouldn’t hesitate to buy but somehow I felt it was out of my league. However last Sunday I finally picked it up for a hundred rupees.

The Sunday Haul (on 13-11-2022)

 I had been to Abids last Sunday and found these three books. I am posting it today instead of on Friday because I was travelling and did not have the time to write it during the week. Sorry. 

The Sunday Haul (on 06-11-2022)

 Another bright and sunny morning on a pleasant Sunday in Hyderabad when l left home for Abids to look at the thousands of books on the pavements. I had earlier bought a copy of ‘Siddhartha’ by Herman Hesse sometime back but haven’t yet read it for some reason. Last Sunday I saw another copy with a photograph of the two actors Shashi Kapoor and Simi Grewal who played the lead roles in the film, and saw that it was a Macmillan India edition that I had never seen before. I decided to buy it and got it for only thirty rupees. Somebody told me it was a rare cover not easily available but how true it is I do not know.

I saw an almost new copy of ‘More Bodies Will Fall’ by Ankush Saikia, a new title by Ankush Saikia who made his debut as a writer with ‘Jet City Woman’ that I had read a long back. Next week I will be travelling to Ooty on work for four days and maybe I will read it at Ooty. I got it in a pile of books selling for hundred rupees each.

The Sunday Haul (on 30-10-2022)

It was the first Sunday after Diwali so all the regular shops were closed which meant that the second hand booksellers of Abids were at their original places in full strength. I was at Abids as usual and spent about two hours looking at all the wonderful titles on sale on the pavements. I ended up buying only two titles last Sunday at Abids.

The first book was one that had a stunning blue cover that caught my eye. When I picked it up for a closer look it had ‘Joe Gould’s Secret’ by Joseph Mitchell on the cover. There was high praise for it in the blurbs on the back cover by Bill Bryson, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Doris Lessing, Martin Amis and also Robert McCrum that made me buy the book without thinking twice about the price the seller was asking for it. I got it for a hundred rupees.

The other title that I found was a book that looked very old but in a good condition. It was a copy of ‘Job: The Story of a Simple Man’ by Joseph Roth. Sometime back I had read on Twitter about Joseph Roth about whom I had not heard of before. The cover looked quite attractive and it was one reason why I picked up the book for eighty rupees.