I have had many good hauls at the Best Books Sale, which takes place twice a year at YMCA, Secunderabad...and this time too I was waiting for their text message announcing their sale...but I got to know of the sale through Vinod's post first...I thought I'd visit them on the first day, but couldn't make it...and so, on the second day I was able to go there...of course, I had planned what to look out for...books of my favourite crime fiction writers Robert Parkers, Peter Robinson, Ian Rankin...I had the list of books of these writers that I already have and so I was prepared...I also wanted to look out for some humour books...and anything else that caught my fancy...but all this preparation went in vain...
Vinod's post informed me that the Best Books guys were planning a permanent set-up at YMCA premises... when I reached there on the second day, I saw that they had already had their permanent shop up and running and the books were stacked too...but I went into the hall of sale first and looked around...didn't find the usual books at their usual places...what to do now...? I presumed they'd have shifted all their fiction titles to the permanent shop in the same premises...and made a mental note to check the shop on my way out...
With very little enthusiasm, I went around and selected four books...Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs, Don't Get Mad, Get Even...A Manual for Retaliation by Alan Abel, and The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Vol. 2...I like Eco's novels and I had purchased The Mysterious Flame... earlier and had enjoyed reading it...a friend of mine, also an Eco fan, borrowed it from me and lost it while shifting residence...what to do...I had contemplated buying another copy long to fill the Eco gap...I must have forgotten...and so when I saw this nice copy with clear illustrations I picked it up...
I didn't want to buy another Dave Barry book, though there were lots of them lying around in the humour section...I didn't enjoy the last two Dave Barry books that I bought at the previous Best Books sale...Dave Barry's Guide to Life and Dave Barry Slept Here...too gimmicky I thought...I was angry with Dave Barry...but since I was getting nowhere, I took a peek at the titles and flipped the pages...and decided to go with the Book of Bad Songs...it is a small book...big fonts...and won't take me long to finish...ha ha ha...
The same friend who lost The Mysterious Queen... would often talk about the Monty Python series and their strange (surreal?) brand of comedy and I remembered him when I saw The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Vol. 2 and thought this would be a good addition…and then just for kicks I picked up Don't Get Mad, Get Even...A Manual for Retaliation by Alan Abel…it has got these sometimes funny ‘retaliatory’ anecdotes…a couple of pages each…easy to read…and here endeth my story of my haul at the recent sale of Best Books…
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