The Sunday Haul (on 12-07-2026)

So late into July there is no sign of the monsoon rains everyone is looking forward to. El Nino is showing its effect and as per forecasts it may not rain until the last week of July. Expectedly it was a sunny, bright but uncomfortably warm morning last Sunday in Hyderabad. My moods weren't exactly normal and I felt like not buying anything at Abids and only wanted to look at the titles and return home empty handed. 

All that resolve vanished when I saw a copy of 'Capitalism: A Ghost Story' by Arundhati Roy at a seller at RTC Crossroads just after getting down from the bus. It is a slim book not more than fifty pages about how capitalism works and gave a few examples relating to India. I finished the book over chai in Star of India later. 

I read the name Hesiod in some book about Greek classics and last Sunday after the chai at Star of India I wandered to the seller beneath the tree where I had found a book the previous Sunday. I spotted a copy of 'Theogony and Works and Days' by Hesiod tr by M.L. West that had a beautiful illustration on the cover. This too was a slim book of less than two hundred pages that I got for hundred rupees. 

I don't know how many copies of 'The Great Railway Bazaar' by Paul Theroux I found all these years and how many copies I gave away. I've bought every copy of this title and other titles by Theroux and so when I saw the copy of 'The Great Railway Bazaar' on the pavement that another person had previously had said he wouldn't give it for less than a hundred and fifty rupees. I saw it for the past two weeks and last Sunday the original seller was there and when I asked he said to give fifty rupees! 

The Sunday Haul (on 05-07-2026)

 Early in the morning while reading the Sunday papers in an Irani cafe I thought it would rain during the day as it was cloudy and there was also a light drizzle when I stepped out to go home. But after I got ready and was ready to leave for Abids it was bright and sunny. 

The first find was a copy of 'The Man of Fifty' by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe with a seller at the RTC Cross Roads just before Chikkadpally. I bought it because it had a foreword by A.S. Byatt and got it for fifty rupees. It is a short book of less than seventy pages that I can read in a couple of hours but when I will find that much time is the question. 

At one of the sellers at Chikkadpally I found a copy of 'All the Way to Heaven' by Stephen Alter, his memoir of a childhood spent in Mussoorie. Though he is an American he spent all his life in India so this seems very interesting. 

The best find of last Sunday was a copy of 'The Best of Raja Rao' Katha Books, that I almost did not buy because I hesitated before checking out the books with this seller under a tree a little beside the Star of India cafe. Somehow I had decided to see as I had time and spotted this wonderful book with a pencil drawing of the author on the attractive cover. This has his essays, short stories, excerpts from his novels and more. It is the right thing to dip into occasionally. This did not come cheap though as I had to pay two hundred rupees for it. 

The last book I found in a heap of fifty rupees books. I saw a copy of 'Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of War' and Love by Janine Di Giovanni, a war correspondent's memoir of her marriage, her work reporting on the war in Sarajevo. This seems very interesting as there are very few books by women war correspondents that I have read. This is the first. 

The Sunday Haul (on 28-06-2026)

     The weather forecast for Sunday had said that it would be cloudy all day but it was bright and sunny almost all day, at least while I outdoors in the morning. I set out for Abids with a plan to pick up the two titles I had seen at Abids but did not pick up. But before reaching Abids I stopped at Chikkadpally and found a copy of '21st Century English Novel in India: Emerging Issues and Challenges' Ed: Jagdish Batra. Somehow nowadays I am reading such titles on criticism so I picked it up though I had to pay two hundred rupees for this hardcover title. 

    Though I have a copy at home I couldn't resist buying the almost new copy of 'Raag Darbari' by Shri Shukla that I saw with a seller. I bought so I can give it to someone who wanted to read the English version. Incidentally, I have two different editions of the original in Hindi that I am yet to read. I got this copy for fifty rupees. 

One title that I had seen the previous Sunday was the copy of 'Alpha Beta: How Our Alphabet Changed the Modern World' by John Man that, fortunately, no one had picked up. It is about the alphabet and how it made a difference in the modern world. I bought it because I need it for a project I am working on. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

        Luckily, the second title I had seen and not bought the previous Sunday was still on the table of the seller. I spotted the copy of 'Contemporary Indian Short Stories Series IV' of Sahitya Akademi and picked it up for a hundred rupees. I have the first three series that I had bought over the years long back. There are twenty one stories in various Indian languages translated into English. Some of the stories I've already read in other anthologies.