The Sunday Haul (on 18-09-2016)

One of the advantages of going to Abids in the morning on Sundays is that one can be among the first to rummage through the pile of fresh stocks of books on the pavements even before anyone has got the chance to do so. The chances of finding good titles are high in the mornings than at any other time of the day and this is one reason why I usually browse for books at Abids in the morning. Sometimes when it is not possible to go in the morning I make it a point to go in the afternoon. Due to an event at my son’s college which I had to attend last Sunday I couldn’t be at Abids in the morning. But I went in the afternoon because my Sundays are not complete without visiting Abids even if it is for an hour or so.

Once again it was a solo hunt as my friends did not turn up. Mercifully it did not rain. The search resulted in just one find but it was a good find. It is not usual to find ‘faber and faber titles at Abids. I’ve found only a hand of ‘faber and faber titles during my more than two decades of book hunting at Abids. Last Sunday the title I found turned out to be an ff title. I saw Michael Dibdin’s ‘The Tryst’ with a black metallic cover that stood out in the heap of books with a seller. On the front cover was Ruth Rendell’s blurb that said “Tremendously exciting…. This is a novel both subtle and horrific” which was enough to make me pick up ‘The Tryst’ that I got very cheap. I paid just thirty rupees for it.

The previous Sunday I had missed picking up Bharati Mukherjee’s ‘Jasmine’ that I had seen at Chikkadpally and had decided that I would buy it this Sunday. But this Sunday I couldn’t locate it with the seller at Chikkadpally. However I saw other titles I now wish I had bought right away but did not. I will write about those titles that I missed buying if I find them next Sunday.