Write Angle — Sizzling reads

Books offer good company while sitting home in the summer

June 08, 2012 06:04 pm | Updated July 12, 2016 01:16 am IST

If you are an author, summer can be a double-edged weapon. If coffee-table books are what you write — or shoot for — chances are most publishers would think twice before arranging a fancy launch. The arguments being that most people travel in summers and coffee-table books are not exactly the easiest to carry. One wants to travel light, hence paperbacks and not hardbacks are the order of the day. Sales are affected. Maharajahs and their tales, with those breathtaking pictures and text at a premium, have to wait for the sun to grow mellower, for rains to fall, for the air to turn balmy.

Then of course, comes the question of how many would venture out to attend a launch. What is a launch with just the author and his Facebook friends for company? There is the little matter of business too. Many a bookstore comes to a standstill in the afternoon: for proof just go across to any B-town and you will realise that the annual ‘loo’ (hot wind) drives people inside. All bookstores down their shutters in the afternoon.

The same is the case with highbrow political criticism and those non-fiction books that demand attention, deserve concentration. Those books are for more amenable times, not when the mercury is on a one-way ladder, and you have relatives visiting on their annual vacations, children making a noise all around. People in flesh and blood, and not those in books, demand their piece of the pie.

But then there is always time for quick reads: over the past summer or two Penguin has got innovative with a series of Metro reads that one can finish in two-three trips to the office on local trains. The stories are simple, at times even open-ended. They arouse interest though they may not always be able to sustain it. The setting is often urban, the concerns are urban too. The authors are young, enthusiastic. Maybe, even skilful.

Then there are film books: they never seem to go out of fashion. Raj Kapoor, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Dharmendra — all have been brought between the covers this summer. Most of them though are armchair works that hold interest only in the subject, not the treatment. Also, raising a dust in summers are novels penned by first-time authors who have to appeal to readers rather than readers demanding more of them. Such authors get their readers at this time of the year. Almost all of them are affordably priced, paperbacks that rely more on the pace of narration than great literary flourishes.

However, while coffee-table publications and serious works of non-fiction are not the flavour of the season, children’s books are very much so. The summers see a neat shift to children’s literature in almost all languages, though some might argue, “Where is the literature for children in many Indian languages?” The argument for more children’s publications (at least in English) at this time of the year being, “kids are home, schools are closed, so they might just want to know more about the world of fairies and everything else.” Of course, a little outing to a bookstore having a cosy little launch does not go amiss with the little ones. Though many are hardbound books with colourful illustrations, we do have many books spun around cartoon characters of popular television series.

However, among the front-runners for the little ones’ attention this season is a Harper-Collins publication “The Bogoli Phut Days” by Tara Goswami. It is a rare book with the focus on the Northeast. Keeping Tara company are books by veteran educationist Sheetal Sharma whose series on life skills, “Hello Life”, screams for attention. Like most children’s books, the essence is as much presentation as content. Somehow, we all tend to believe, very firmly, that children cannot draw a picture in their mind. So they need help! A photo, a drawing, an illustration! The written word alone does not register with the young mind! A perception, but it obviously helps illustrators make hay while the sun shines!

Hey, talking of writing for children, can Ruskin Bond be kept away? So here he is with “Hip-Hop Nature Boy and Other Poems”. They say he can spin stories out of nothing. That is something. The economics of publishing can take care of itself.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.