A Rich Haul

I just returned from a short and hectic ten day tour of Bangalore. Of this trip, I could have chosen to tell you about the flight which got cancelled, or the flight which we missed, of the various airports that we spent a LOT of time in, of how Bangalore can now only be described as a city under construction, of the many plans made and the many more that were cancelled even before they were made, of how I almost visited Mysore, Belur, Halebid, Sringeri etc... Though these were exciting and fun in themselves, I choose to tell you instead, about what excited me the most - My overall haul of 10 books this summer.

These last two months have seen me come by 10 books at the overall cost of 1100/-. The price of these books have ranged between Rs 20/- (for a Colleen McCulough Classic) to Rs 395/- for "MyChina Diary" by K. Natwar Singh. The genre of the books encompasses everything from the super trashy ("Why Mars and Venus Collide"), to general fiction (2 Sidney Sheldons) a classic (Colleen McCullough's "The Ladies of Missalonghi") Contemporary Fiction (Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss") to Self Development (Deepak Chopra's "Power, Freedom and Grace" ) Political Non Fiction (My China Diary), Political Fiction ("A Case of Exploding Mangoes" - about General Zia Ul Haq's assassination), History ( Killing Rage - about the IRA and it's struggle), and Biography (Angela's Ashes).

Even the places from where I acquired these books are just as varied - ranging from a mail order from the India Today Book Club, Delhi, a footpath and a second hand book store, Bangalore and a Bookstore at the Kolkata airport.

What has remained constant however is my smug pleasure at each of these acquisitions. :-)