Kovalam Literary Festival to make Delhi debut

The annual Kovalam Literary Festival will make its debut stopover in the national capital Sept 29 with a daylong session at the India International Centre (IIC), founder-director of the festival Binoo K. John said on Monday.

The stopover in being held prior to the main festival in Thiruvananthapuram Oct 1-2.

The line-up includes Mohammed Hanif, Aamer Hussain, Fatima Bhutto from Pakistan and Shehan Karunatilake, the author of “Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Matthew” from Sri Lanka.

Karunatilake won the Gratiaen Award for his book.

“Hanif is expected to read from his new novel ‘Our Lady of Alice Bhatti’. The India International Centre is sponsoring the mini-edition of the Kovalam Literary Festival. An event in Delhi will give us leverage and will help brand the festival,” John said.

“Delhi has book events throughout the year and an extremely aware audience will get a day’s extravaganza with a music concert at the end,” John added.

Smoke on the water

In the second of his ‘Ibis’ trilogy, Ghosh is at the pinnacle of his prowess. It’s a triumph, a truly global novel

We’re just halfway into the year, but if there’s one novel in 2011 that will make the pulse race and the mind wonder with sweep, scale, power and a riveting, multi-threaded story, it is Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke. Coming three years after Sea of Poppies, which was the first volume in the Ibis trilogy, the middle panel of the triptych is even vaster, denser with action and richer in backdrop.

Poppies was set primarily in the Calcutta of 1838—the fulcrum of the British empire in the east, where trade was the lubricating agent of colonization—and on board the Ibis, transporting indentured workers to Mauritius, along with convicts. But River of Smoke abandons this centre, for the most part, stretching its action from Mauritius in the West to Canton in the East, with passing cameos by other parts of the world, such as the island of St Helena where Napoleon is exiled after losing the Battle of Waterloo, which puts in an appearance in the novel.

Much of the action continues to take place on board merchant ships—either in mid-voyage, or anchored off the coast of China, as events come to a slow boil in the world’s largest market for the opium that British and Indian traders make a killing on. The line from the poppy fields of eastern India is thus drawn all the way to Canton. Here, local opium dealers supplying a willing population of addicts not only help reverse the trade deficit of the British empire with China—while adding to the wealth of individual opium traders from all countries who’ve joined the gold rush—they also lead the Chinese empire to clamp down on opium imports. The outcome, of course, will be the Opium Wars, in not one but two editions.

Full review here Mint 

The journey from book to a movie

"But the book was so much better than the movie!!" One thing you can hear quite frequently when a book turns into a movie. Sure, we like to see a movie based on the book we just read.

But does the movie justify the book at all? A book is a cauldron of piping hot fantasies and situations which when read, springs to life inside your head. It is fascinating to think that there is a small corner in your head that turns words into images. But what happens if the book doesn't meet your imagination?

Most of us get excited when we hear that our favourite book is going to turn into a movie. We might even get all excited and go see the movie. The movie would have been incredibly, no doubt. And with all that excitement you go watch the movie. What if the movie is a total buzzkill? The scenes you envisioned cut thanks to the time factor (and also money!). Popular movies are based on books; from classics such Wuthering heights to the latest Edward fever, everything seems to be turning celluloid. So the ultimate question here is; the book or movie? Which one would you prefer? It's not an easy answer. The answer however lies somewhere in between.

Full report here Times of India

Now, Archie comics in Indian avatar

The iconic red-haired Archie, a comic book heartthrob with a perpetually hassled look and two girlfriends, will soon be dancing to Bollywood numbers in the book’s Indian avatar published in Hindi and Malayalam. Seventy years after its birth in the US, 12 titles of the popular Archie comics will be published in 2011 by Variety Book Depot and distributed by EuroBooks, a leading publisher of children’s books in India, a release by the publisher said late Monday.

Commenting on the launch of the book in Hindi and Malayalam, Jon Goldwater, co-CEO of Archie Comics, said: “Archie Comics have entertained fans for several generations. We wanted to give our fans in India something they could relate to. The move is to bring in some Indian flavour to the comic. It will be the same Archie, the same Veronica and Betty but with a ‘desi’ twist.”

“Fans can now expect Archie and Veronica to dance to the popular Bollywood number ‘Aakhon ki gustakhiyaa’ or see the gang sing some popular songs like the college classic ‘Purani jeans’ and oldie ‘Kankariya maar ke jagaya’ as smart chicks walk past the brood,” he added.

The company plans to launch 36 titles by 2012.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Mountain Echoes: Bhutan’s literary festival

‘Hopping a freight out of Los Angeles at high noon one day in late September 1955 I got on a gondola and lay down my duffel bag under my head and my knees crossed and contemplated the clouds as we rolled north to Santa Barbara.’

This isn’t the right description of how I ended up staring out of a window of Hotel Namgay Heritage in Thimpu for  hours last week. My journey into the great wide open as part of a group of writers, journos, publishers, filmmakers and general riff raff (read: non-venture capitalists) was less ‘beat’ than the aforequoted journeyman’s. But Jack Kerouac’s opening lines from The Dharma Bums retrofit perfectly with my state of being as I contemplated the clouds that rolled in to cover the hilltops above me for four days.

The May 20-23 Mountain Echoes Literary Festival in the Bhutanese capital was a deep-bowled noodle soup of writers talking about their craft, experts sharing their fears and excitements about the future of reading, and audiences being given a guided tour of the world that lies behind the world wide web of infotainment of which books are only one (shrinking?) vehicle.

Full report here Hindustan Times

New book from Ruskin Bond

Novelist Ruskin Bond, who celebrated his 77th birthday on Thursday, gifted his fans a brand new collection of stories about one of his most endearing characters – the eccentric, bumbling Uncle Ken.

Crazy Times with Uncle Ken includes old classics as well as new stories, a statement by Penguin-India said. A Puffin imprint, the book is priced at Rs 199.

Uncle Ken is one of those people who do not do much but a great deal happens around them.

Whenever Uncle Ken arrives at Grandma’s house, which he does often, trouble erupts. Uncle Ken drives his car into a wall, is mistaken for a famous cricketer, troubled by a mischievous ghost, chased by a swarm of bees and attacked by flying foxes.

Be it the numerous bicycle rides with the author or his futile attempts at finding a job, Uncle Ken’s misadventures provide huge doses of laughter.

Born in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh in 1934, Ruskin Bond grew up in Jamnagar (Gujarat), Dehradun, New Delhi and Simla.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Davidar ties up with Rupa Publications

Noted publisher and writer David Davidar, who last year exited as CEO of Penguin’s international division amid controversy, has tied up with Rupa Publications, India to set up a new literary firm, the Aleph Book Company.

Announcing the partnership in a press statement on Monday, Davidar said: “Each book published by Aleph will be distinctive, original and of outstanding literary quality.” It will be headquartered in the capital.

“Our books will be creatively packaged and innovatively marketed through traditional retail and grant outlet as well as digital and other channels,” the veteran publisher said.

Kapish G. Mehra, managing director of Rupa Publications, said the new publishing partnership with Davidar was a “perfect way to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Rupa as the new company will complement and round out Rupa’s existing publishing”.

“Rupa has an excellent publishing relationship with retailers nationwide. It has seven offices around the country and reaches deep into the market. So every Aleph book and author will have an excellent chance to succeed in the market,” Mehra said.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Books spawned by Osama

Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US forces in Pakistan, was a shadowy figure who spawned a vast booty of books, art and performance acts. A list of some of the books inspired by the ‘badshah’ of terror who masterminded the 9/11 attack:

The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda by Peter L. Bergen
The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda” written by Peter L. Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst is an overview of the war on terror. It explores the persona of the Al Qaeda leader and an intimate understanding of how the organisation works on a day-to-day basis. The book said the Al Qaeda had a growing list of enemies, including the Muslims, who did not agree with their “ultra-fundamentalist” view.

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll.
An Arabian Family in the American Century” by Steve Coll. The Pulitzer Prize winning author portrays the 9/11 mastermind as a complex human being and his relationships with his father, Muhammad, who made a fortune in Saudi Arabia as the king’s principal builder; and his older brother Salem, a British-educated, music-loving playboy. Coll suggests bin Laden turned to jihad because of the worsening relationships with the Saudi royal family, his own relatives and anger at America. The US forced Sudan to expel bin Laden from the country where he raised horses and sunflowers on a farm while training jihadis).

Full list here Hindustan Times

Siddhartha Mukherjee bags Pulitzer Prize

Indian American cancer specialist Siddhartha Mukherjee has bagged this year’s Pulitzer prize in the general non-fiction category for his book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

Delhi-born Mukherjee’s book has been described as “an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science”.

The finalists in the category were The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain by Nicholas Carr and Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne.

An assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Center, Mukherjee had told IANS in December last year: “Cancer is growing dramatically in certain parts of South Asia.”

Mukherjee advocated a strong anti-smoking campaign and breast cancer screening to battle the growing incidence of the disease in India.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Why do the righteous suffer?

Arul Selvan, our pre-maturely born, two-kilo bundle of joy, was a mongoloid baby. We were told he had Down’s syndrome. Things looked bleak, and six months later they got worse. After every feed, Arul’s abdomen would swell up

like a volleyball and within a few minutes his body would reject all nutrition. We consulted many specialists, to no avail. So we turned to God. We started Novena, a nine-day prayer of passionate devotion and penance. On the fifth day our family physician told us, “It could be a malabsorption, due to cereal content in the food.” We stopped the baby food and Arul’s eating improved almost immediately. The other problems, however, continued. There was always some ailment or the other, and all his milestones were delayed.

Now Arul is 37 years old. Though his mental age is that of a teenager, there is great progress physically. To a large extent, he is able to take care of himself. He also helps his mother in sweeping the house, and sometimes swabs the floor, slowly but steadily. He assists me, too, in the garden.

Arul has boundless love for all, and expresses it without any expectation or demands. We all love him dearly. We see him as “God’s special gift”. What we saw earlier as “suffering” we now see as a training tool — Arul changed our life. Our mindset altered, our value-system changed. He removed our pride and replaced it with a spiritual outlook. He helped us learn how to serve others to the best of our ability.

Full report here Asian Age

The Booker out of the blue

Howard Jacobson's Man Booker Prize for Fiction-winning book, The Finkler Question, opens with the sentence, “He should have seen it coming.”

But did he? Not quite.

“The only inevitability I see about it is that finally I've won it. Often I thought I was never going to win it; never thought that I'll eventually win it this time,” admits Jacobson. Indeed, the Booker for The Finkler Question has surprised many.

That a “seriously funny book,” as it has been described in literary circles, has won the Booker has raised many eyebrows. Speaking from London in a telephone interview, Jacobson is at a loss why. “I don't know why they're surprised. I'm not the first comic novelist to get the Prize. Nor have the past recipients been all dark, serious writers. There was Salman Rushdie, too,” he says.

Then he analyses the cause: “Maybe, it's because I've such a vast volume of comic novels under my belt. But pray, it's not my first book. I've been writing for the past 27 years. Seriously speaking, I'm happy I make people laugh but I don't make them go wild laughing. There is always an issue involved, there are other sentiments.”

Full report here Hindu

'Booker Prize is like backward shining light'

Novelist Howard Jacobson, who won the Man Booker Prize for his The Finkler Question, says the award is like a "backward shining light" that seems to bless all his previous books. "I feel now that the Man Booker couldn't have happened at a more wonderful time. It seems to bless all my previous books. It is like a backward shining light, benefiting all the books I have written," Jacobson told IANS in a telephone interview from London.

"I advise young aspiring writers to read the best of literature. And if they do not succeed early in life, let Howard Jacobson be a lesson that one can succeed even at the age of 68," Jacobson, who is of Jewish origin and often describes himself as a 'Jewish Jane Austen', said.

The Manchester-born Jacobson, who was earlier long-listed twice for the Man Booker Prize - in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and for Who's Sorry Now in 2002, is compared to Philip Roth, the famous American-Jewish novelist.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Kapil Sibal calls for a neighbourhood book policy

Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has said that there should a neighborhood book policy in the country.

He said the aim should be that in the manner of neighborhood schools, there should be neighborhood libraries and reading rooms.

While speaking at a Round Table held to discuss the policy in the national capital, Kapil Sibal gave his suggestion to the Task Force that has prepared the raft National Book Promotion Policy.

He added that the model of libraries/reading rooms being followed in Tamil adu (pointed out and praised by some members of the round table) could be looked at by the Task Force to be incorporated in their report.

Sibal, however, said that state governments would have to be involved in this.

Speaking at the conclusion of a discussion during which a host of suggestions were made regarding the draft policy, the Union Human Resource Minister asked the Task Force to rework on the draft policy accordingly and also asked it to hold meetings with students and parents who are also stakeholders, subsequent to a suggestion in this regard by a participant in the Round Table.

Full report here Sify

A cover story

With the advent of e-books, book cover designers talk about the winds of change

Admit it, we judge books by their covers. Books are like people. They come dressed in different outfits. Some are sombre old men in black. Some others are inscribed with the topsy turvy letters of youth. Authors of books are celebrated but the designers who make the covers are too often forgotten.

With the advent of e-books, will book covers become a thing of the past and turn cover designers into an endangered species? In the city, the world of book cover designers is buzzing about the winds of change. “I hope I get to do a lot more than just the cover. Maybe multiple covers for each book?” says Kedarnath Gupta, an independent illustrator for Hachette India. Bena Sareen, 42, Creative Designer, Penguin Books, India, adds that she is excited at the possibility of interaction that e-book covers will allow.

Most designers have chosen this field as a vocation. Shuka Jain, Art Director of Harper Collins, who ventured into book designing because it combined her two loves — art and books — too says that she is far from worried about the virtual encroachment. Sareen adds that she was an avid sociologist for many years before a chance meeting with a graphic design professor in the US convinced her that this was a profession she could pursue. Gupta, on the other hand, went from daytime copywriter who doubled as an illustrator at night for six years, to a full-time illustrator recently.

Full report here Indian Express

Kapoor and Chopra to be animated?

Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra could be animated in a cartoon version of their rom-com Anjaana Anjaani.

The cartoon could follow plans for a series of comic books based on the two characters who meet when they are both on the verge of suicide, New Kerala has reported.

Producer Sajid Nadiadwala told the site: "A lot of us involved with this film felt the Priyanka and Ranbir characters will translate well into comic books.

"We are in negotiation. But I can't really talk about the project until all the deals are done."

Full report here Digital Spy

Amazon pledges to fight any increase in e-book prices

Online retailer Amazon UK has pledged to its Kindle customers that it would fight back publishing houses' plans to increase the prices of e-books.

Amazon UK's comments emerged as some publishing houses are mulling over plans to adopt an "agency model" for selling their e-books across platforms. The adoption of the agency model will make publishers setters of the consumer price of their e-books.

But, the online retailer claims that any increase in the prices of the e-books will not only affect the consumers, but also the publishers and authors.

Commenting on the topic, Amazon wrote in a blog post, "For a number of reasons, we think this is a damaging approach for readers, authors, booksellers and publishers alike."

Full report here Top News

Granta 112: Paksitan

If the most poignant image of the Partition of 1947 is sought in fiction, one will have to turn to Saadat Hasan Manto. Specifically to Bishen Singh, the “lunatic” Sikh in Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, who, failing to figure out whether his native village was in India or Pakistan, refuses to budge from the no-man’s-land between the two countries. We are now 63 years removed from that episode of blood and pain, and reading Granta’s latest Pakistan issue, a collection of short stories, essays, poems and images from mostly Pakistani writers and artists, one realises that the intellectual moorings have also shifted from a question of where-is-home to what-is-home.

Granta 112: Pakistan; Rs599; pp 288

That question of Pakistani identity is complicated not just because of its ethnic or cultural diversity, but also because the country thrives in popular perception through a series of negative associations. For India, it’s the arch adversary with whom it had to fight three wars; for America, it’s a cauldron of jihadi fanaticism that has suddenly intruded into the consciousness; for the rest, it’s a country whose democracy is periodically undermined by direct or proxy military intervention.

Granta’s collection — its ornate cover designed by artist Islam Gull with the same industrial paints used to decorate trucks — tries to represent some of the vibrant potency in contemporary Pakistani society, to sift through all the violence and anger and find some meaning or even traces of humanity in the chaos, to critique its own society while also shredding apart America’s foreign policy that has significantly contributed to the mess.

Full review here Hindustan Times

A clash of worldviews

It’s chick lit. Good lord, no, it’s far from chick lit. It’s very funny. Oh yeah? Then how come it makes you shudder? It’s vastly different from the kind of novel we’ve come to expect from Pakistani writers. No, it’s just the same. You want to whack the heroine, she’s so annoying. You want to hug her and take her away to a place where life is less traumatic than where she is now. You laugh at the way the media is portrayed in the book. You wince because it seems so familiar. You send up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever is responsible for where you live. You know that, if you weren’t so deliberately blind, where you live is actually quite similar to where this book is set.

Beautiful From This Angle
Maha Khan Phillips
Penguin
Rs250; pp 240

That’s a lot of internal argument for a novel that’s only 232 pages long, but you can’t read Pakistani writer Maha Khan Phillips’s Beautiful From This Angle without putting it down every few pages to struggle with yourself. The blurb makes it seem simple; so does the first chapter. Then, everything explodes.

So, here’s Amynah Farooqui, a 24-year-old Page 3-type chick who writes a column called ‘Party Queen on the Scene’ for a magazine in Karachi. She’s rich, her parents have separate love lives, she drinks, smokes, does coke (not the soft drink), picks up lovers whenever she feels like, is friends with a TV producer who’s making a reality show featuring British celebrities called ‘Who Wants to Be a Terrorist?’, and is writing an Oppressed Woman’s Novel, about a British Pakistani girl whose father forcibly marries her to a cousin in the homeland — a man who beats her, incarcerates her and kills her dog, Fifi.

Life, for Amynah, is good.

Full review here Hindustan Times

The mother of all goddesses

In a fascinating recounting of the story of Hariti, a child-devourer whom the Buddha brought to the path of Righteousness, and who then went on to become one of Buddhism’s — and

From Ogress to Goddess: Hariti
Madhurika K Maheshwari
IIRNS Publications
Rs3,000; pp 244

India’s — foremost Mother Goddesses, Madhurika K. Maheshwari’s From Ogress to Goddess — Hariti — A Buddhist Deity focuses on a deity that once enjoyed more prominence in the Indian subcontinent and beyond than it does today. Maheshwari’s study is very readable and wide-ranging, with its focus being the erstwhile prominent deity.

According to early Buddhist tradition, Hariti the Yakshini (yakshas and yakshinis being divine beings with benevolent and malevolent aspects), was an ogress who also became the city of Rajgriha’s protector demi-goddess, changed her wicked propensity for devouring children after Gautama Buddha helped her understand that her anguish for her missing child was no different than the sorrow felt by the parents of children she had eaten. Following her repentance, the Buddha raised Hariti to a divine status, making her protector not just of children and expectant mothers, but also of the Buddhist Sangha and its stupas, viharas, monastery-structures, people and morals.

Hariti became the predominant Mother-Goddess in India from about circa 1st century BC to 1st century AD and retained her relevance over the centuries, often becoming incorporated with local sub-regional goddesses, and with goddesses called upon to protect children from disease, death and disaster. It may be noted that Hariti became not just a protective deity and  fertility goddess — in common with other yakshinis in Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism — but she was also the consort of Panchika Kubera, king of the Yakshas and Lord of Wealth.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Books: The Old Friends

I’m sorry but I just don’t get people who can read a book, profess to love it, and then pass it on to someone else. I guess that makes me a selfish so-and-so who doesn’t like to share. But no matter how hard I try, I find it impossible to let go of a book that has given me hours of pleasure – and will do so again when I get around to re-reading it in a year or so (as I inevitably will).

See, that’s the problem. It’s not that I don’t like to share. It’s just that for me, books are not just objects that you can pass on from one person to another. For me, they are old friends with whom I have an on-going relationship. I turn to them for cheering up when I am feeling low. I fall back on them for companionship on a rainy afternoon. I find new delights in them every time I read them afresh. And sometimes, they function as an aide-memoire, reminding me of happier times when I had read them for the very first time.

The books I had to study for my English Honours course in college still occupy pride of place on my shelves. Only now, I can dip into them for pleasure instead of worrying about tricky exam questions I might have to answer later. Hardy perennials like Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer come in handy when I am feeling a tad nostalgic for my youth. Donna Leon, Elizabeth George and Val McDermid are tucked away in case I should ever want to lose myself in a murder mystery (and no, it makes no difference that I already know who did it). Jodi Picoult is the perfect comfort read over a lazy weekend. And then, there are the classics like novels by Jane Austen, which never get old no matter how many times I read them.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Michael Caine eyes literary future

Hollywood veteran Michael Caine is planning to write a novel after he completes the next Batman film. The-77-year-old Oscar-winner says he is sick of lawyers telling him that he cannot write about certain things in his autobiography and wants freedom as a writer. Caine just released his second autobiography The Elephant to Hollywood, and he has promised his fans that his next book will be a work of fiction, Entertainment Weekly reported.

"I love writing so much that once I'm finished with Batman, I'm going to write fiction.

"When I was writing my first book, I talked with Kirk Douglas, who had written one of his own. I told him that the lawyers were always saying, 'You can't say that or you'll get sued'. He said to me, 'Write fiction, Michael. You can tell the truth.' Isn't that a great line?"

Love amidst chaos

The irony in the title immediately strikes you. The Luck Of The Jews is a true story about love and providence amidst twentieth century’s darkest period — the Holocaust.

The Luck Of The Jews
Michael Benanav
Global Vision Press
Rs.395 

The author, a journalist, traces the lives of his grandparents Joshua and Isadora, both victims of the Nazi pogrom. After escaping from separate concentration camps, their paths miraculously cross aboard a refugee ship bound for Palestine. Three days later, and without any common language between them, the two are married.

This well-researched book is not about the Holocaust as much as it is about the triumph of the human spirit. And it is as important a historical micro narrative as it is the author’s personal quest for answers.

With a journalist’s eye for detail, Benanav succeeds in drawing us into the times and the spaces he describes. One only wishes he had spent more pages describing his  grandparents’ life post-marriage and their eventual shift to America. But that’s a minor shortfall in a book that’s both important and gripping.

Full review here Hindustan Times

Howard Jacobson wins Booker Prize

British author Howard Jacobson was the surprise winner of the Man Booker Prize on Tuesday for The Finkler Question, the first comic novel to scoop one of the English-speaking world's most coveted literary awards.

The 68-year-old writer and critic, who specialises in writing about what it means to be Jewish in Britain today, was the rank outsider with bookmaker Ladbrokes ahead of the announcement, while Tom McCarthy's C was firm favourite.

Jacobson, whose first novel appeared 27 years ago, said he had begun to wonder whether he would ever win the prize, now in its 42nd year.

"I was truly flabbergasted," he told reporters after receiving the award in the medieval splendour of London's Guildhall. "I'm so sick of being described as the 'underrated Howard Jacobson'.

"They (Man Booker judges) took me in their arms a little bit in the longlist, the shortlist felt like an embrace. I never thought the affair was going to be consummated."

Full report here Reuters

E-book industry booms in China

The e-book industry in China is booming and is now the second biggest in the world after the US industry.

In 2009, the number of e-books sold in China reached 3.82 million, and that in the first half of 2010 amounted to over 20 per cent of the world's total.

However, there had been a few problems in the popularity of the e-book industry, leading to the country's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) releasing a few instructions, Xinhua reported.

The problems include weak protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), lack of industry-wide standards and a dearth of domestically-produced reading material. The administration also outlined a few tasks for the promotion of the industry.

Full report here Hindustan Times

New Mandela book offers personal portrait

A new volume of Nelson Mandela memoirs goes on sale on Tuesday in 22 countries and 20 languages. Conversations with Myself was compiled with the 92-year-old Mandela's blessing by a team of archivists, editors and collaborators who worked from decades of notes, letters, recorded conversations and other material.

The editors promise a personal portrait of the anti-apartheid icon - faults, frailties and all.

In a foreword, US President Barack Obama writes that Mandela, who largely retired from public life in 2004, is inspiring because he is human.

Full report here Hindustan Times/ AP

This will be a shock for elites: Bush

Former US President George W. Bush has said that he is enjoying his life of not being in the limelight at the White House. Speaking at a scholarship benefit for the University of Mobile in Alabama: Bush said: “I loved being your president, but frankly, I’m having the time of my life not being your president.”

The former President also gave a preview of his soon-to-be released memoir Decision Points, and said that writing the book was an “interesting experience”.

“I have written a book. This will come as a shock for some of the elites. They didn’t think I could read a book, much less write one,” The New York Post quoted Bush, as saying.

“Here are the stories, and you can decide what you would have done. It’s not judgmental. It’s a book that tries to describe the environment in which I was honored to be your president,” he added.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Salman Rushdie pens kids' book

Salman Rushdie, the prize-winning Indian-born writer, has in the past based novels on the politics of India and Pakistan. But his latest book is for teenagers, and the inspiration — at least some of it — came from video games.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rushdie said Luka and the Fire of Life, his new novel, was written as a birthday present for his 13-year-old son, Milan.

The book, a fable about a young boy's adventures as he tries to save his father's life, is the second novel Rushdie has written for children. His first, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," was written for his older son, Zafar, in 1989, as Rushdie was under threat of death.

Earlier that year, Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had issued a religious edict, or fatwah, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie, saying his novel "The Satanic Verses" had insulted Islam.

The new book, Rushdie said Friday, Oct 8 drew inspiration from elements of computer games — though he admitted that he was terrible at the games and his sons usually beat him.

"Video games are often based on a classical quest format. That fits well with a fable," he told the AP. "The book is about the value of life, and in video games you can have a thousand lives. So I contrasted those two things."

Rushdie said much has changed since his first children's book, which he described as a response to being forced into hiding. The fatwah, which came amid angry protests and book burnings across the Muslim world, put Rushdie under police protection for almost 10 years.

"This was a dark time for me and I tried to fill the novel with light and to give it a happy ending. Happy endings were things I had become very interested in at the time," he said.

Rushdie said he enjoyed writing the two children's books, but he doesn't see himself becoming a children's author.

Full report here AP

‘I am a story teller’

With her second novel The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos out recently, Margaret Mascarenhas opens up about how growing up in Venezuela has impacted her writing.

Eight years after Penguin India published her first novel Skin, Margaret Mascarenhas' latest novel The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos was published in the U.S. by Hachette Book Group Inc. A novel set in Venezuela, The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos is a differently crafted novel that gently reels in its reader into a story of love, family, belonging and the “search for individual truth”, set against a backdrop of revolution, uncertainty and change. Shortly after its India launch recently, Margaret Mascarenhas talks about the book, its subtext of resistance, growing up in Venezuela, and the influences on her work as a writer.

The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos is an intriguingly crafted book. You've used magic realism a lot. The final chapter catches the reader completely by surprise.
Yes, everybody gets zapped by the end. But it's really up to the reader to decide if it's this or that. I grew up in South America, so magic realism is part of my psyche. But in this book, I turn magical realism completely on its head.Technically, I was doing several things. I am questioning the genre of magical realism. I am converting to writing an essentially oral cliff-hanger telenovela format. And I also tried to tell a story in a closed third person narration, through the point of view of nine characters that the reader must get in love with immediately, and never repeat a character, while pulling the base story line through those nine characters' point of view. I had to see if I could pull that off successfully. And I think I have.

When I write I find it's important for me to challenge myself technically, in story telling, in terms of format and the way I would present it. It took me five years to complete, but I can never feel any urgency to rush things until I am fully satisfied with the work myself.

Full interview here Hindu

Mystique of Mumbai

In her book City of Gold: The Biography of Bombay, Gillian Tindal evoked an image of a nascent city, a tangle of masonry, bazaar and tram lines forging into the swamp. In books set in more recent times (India: A Million Mutinies Now, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, Shantaram, Bombay and Mumbai: The City In Transition), we see a proud metropolis hollowed out by desperation, violent self assertion and crime. For a sense of how ordinary people, rich, poor and middle class, negotiate this turbulent landscape, we have the writings of Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra, Anita Desai, Amit Chaudhuri, Manil Suri and a host of less widely celebrated but much beloved local authors and poets. This treasure trove notwithstanding, one feels, there is still much to be said, much more to be understood about this great and complex city. And it is with pleasant anticipation that one greets Gyan Prakash’s Mumbai Fables.

Prakash is the Dayton-Stockton professor of history at Princeton University whose previous books include weighty titles such as Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labor Servitude in Colonial India (1990) and Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (1999). But with Mumbai Fables, a subject he says has preoccupied him for much of the last decade, he seems to have tapped into a less theoretical and more personal register. Explaining his motivation early on in the book, he describes Mumbai, or Bombay, as it then was, as an object of immense fascination and longing for him as a young boy growing up in Patna.

Full report here Indian Express

DK Books to focus now on e-books, travel

Dorling-Kindersley-India (DK-India), a publishing subsidiary of Penguin Books, is expanding its footprint in the Indian market with new digital and travel titles in 2010-11. It has cut down its list of titles post-recession in 2009 to concentrate on its quick-yield travel, lifestyle and digital segments.

'We are building our digital operations in India,' Aparna Sharma, managing director of DK India, told IANS here.

In 2009, the imprint cut down on its titles by at least one-third to survive the downturn... and the trend continues.

'We have narrowed the focus down to our strengths - travel, lifestyles and digital books so that we get the maximum returns. We are publishing nearly 180 titles a year and we do not want to increase the number,' she said.

However, children's books remain a priority area.

Full report here Sify

Carnival of books

Lyndy Cooke, executive director of The Hay Festival of the Literature and the Arts, talks about the event that comes to Thiruvananthapuram in November

It will be carnival time in the city in November as The Hay Festival of the Literature and the Arts hits the shores of Kerala. An annual festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, it is one of the world's most prestigious literary festivals and it's hosting its first India edition in Kerala with around 40 leading authors.

The festival, which is on from November 12 to 14 at Kanakakunnu Palace promises to be a delight for bibliophiles. Besides literature, it will also explore new ideas on arts, poetry et al.

An annual event
Says Lyndy Cooke, executive director of the event: “The Hay Festival in the United Kingdom covers a range of ideas, thoughts and topics. Environment, arts, history, politics, fiction…With around 500 events across 11 days it attracts record audience each year. At the previous Hay Festival, we registered an attendance of 200,000. In Kerala, the Hay Festival will be an annual event and we will invite the best international authors, thinkers, publishers and up-and-coming authors. The focus of the fete this year will be more specific, centering on literature, environment, culture, health and education. We will start it small and then let it grow.”

Full report here Hindu

The myth meister

The author weaves another engrossing yarn, all the while addressing some of his perennial concerns about human life and expression

Luka and the Fire of Life
Salman Rushdie
Jonathan Cape
Rs 915; Pp 216

Nearly two decades ago, Salman Rushdie wrote a novel while he was in hiding after Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on him, over his novel, The Satanic Verses. That delightful novel was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, an in-your-face response, showing that he could not be silenced and he would not disappear into oblivion.

There, a little boy called Haroun travels to the source of all stories to restore the gift of gab, which his father, Rashid Khalifa, had lost. It dazzled readers, even as it had a particular poignancy and relevance—it was a stirring defence of free speech—of arguments, talkativeness, and verbal anarchy, against khatam-shud, or silence, the dark place where only one voice could speak. Rushdie had written that novel for his son Zafar, who was, to borrow a word Rushdie coined in Midnight’s Children, “nearlynine” at the time of the fatwa.

With Luka and the Fire of Life, Rushdie returns to the Khalifa family. Written for his second son, Milan, who is now 13, the story is about Haroun’s brother, Luka, who is determined to help his father. The Shah of Blah, as Rashid Khalifa is known, is back, but only just: He is ill; life is seeping out, and tubes sustain him by feeding him and people worry around him. Twelve-year-old Luka has to complete a hair-raising journey through the world of magic, and in a nod to the Promethean myth, he must bring the fire of life to the earth, to revive his father.

Full review here Mint

The clean-up act

Intended to promote a national movement on civility, it lacks a clean raison d’être

Avoid excessive use of hand gestures as it can cause stress to others” reads an instructional nugget, part of a chapter called Day to Day Decency in a book on etiquette and hygiene by former cop Kiran Bedi. The book, Broom & Groom, has been co-authored by Pavan Choudary, who calls himself a wisdom educator.

Let’s face it: Indians aren’t known to have the most evolved standards of social etiquette and personal hygiene. But is a guidebook—one that fashions itself as a nation-building exercise, no less—an answer to that? Will people who make revolting guttural noises to cough up phlegm divorce their long-standing morning ritual after they read: “Be aware if you get phlegm and get treated for it.”

Bedi is the winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She has authored books in the past and hosts a popular television show, Aap ki Kachehri. Choudary has authored several books and also hosts a television show on Doordarshan called Hum Aise Kyon Hain.

Full report here Mint 

'Being a father changed my writing'

Salman Rushdie is apologetic. His publishers hadn't factored in that America had gone into 'daylight saving time' and so he called me 40 minutes earlier than originally planned. But when the '+401' number from New York flashed on my mobile, I wasn't unprepared, having helped myself with a glass of what I had read somewhere to be the 63-year-old writer's favourite drink: Jameson on the rocks.

After the disrupting force of The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie had written his first children's book, the 1990 Haroun and the Sea of Stories. That novel had been written for his then 11-year-old son Zafar after he had wanted to read something by his father that 'children could read'. Twenty years later, Rushdie's out with Luka and the Fire of Life, this time for his younger son Milan. "He told me that it was time he had a book written for him too," says Rushdie, who presented the manuscript to Milan on his 12th birthday.

Full report here Hindustan Times

When eReaders nudge into bookshelves

It is a sunny afternoon, and Pradeep Palazhi the COO of Bangalore-based EC Media International P Ltd (http://bit.ly/F4TPradeepEC) is cheerful. Understandably so, because only a day ago his company’s Wink, the desi eReader, was out in New Delhi with a price tag of less than Rs 12,000.

“I foresee eReaders accelerating a larger trend towards electronic/ digital publishing,” he begins, without batting an eyelid, during our interaction in Business Line. “Digital media in publishing is not going to replace printed media. However, it is going to be growing in size and share of the publishing market. More and more content will be published in electronic and printed formats to start off and the balance will tilt towards electronic formats in the future.”

Another interesting aspect, in Pradeep’s view, is the way the whole eBook phenomenon is going to affect the traditional libraries. The jury is still out, but early trends indicate that the library model will have to undergo a significant makeover in the process, he avers.

A thought that Pradeep offers to the traditional bookshops is that they will have to come up with innovative models to adapt to the eBook revolution. “While eBooks are not going to replace printed books, they will definitely reduce their share of the market. Digital publishing or eBook publishing will result in increase of self-publishing market. It will be easier and cost effective for authors to publish their titles which may not be accepted by a traditional publisher. This market will see a huge growth over the next few years.”

Full report here Hindu

Dreamtech Press launches book on HR

Dreamtech Press adds releases Human Resource Management Book into its management book series. This book is structured in a reader-friendly manner to explain the principles and fundamentals of human resource management. To enhance readers’ knowledge, the book focuses on the current and emerging trends in the field of HRM, such as Succession Planning, Change Management, HRD Audit and Accounting, Future of HRM, High Quality Work Life, iHRM and HRIS.

This book also includes figures, charts, tables, exhibits, and real world examples to simplify the complex concepts and to enrich the understanding of the readers. In addition, case studies are provided to give a practical view of the concepts and theories of HRM.

Summary is provided at the end of each chapter to recollect the basics of the discussed topics. Exercises are also supplemented to evaluate the learning of the reader.

Full report here Forestlaneshul

Bonding with books

A meeting with ‘Gnanalaya’ B. Krishnamurthy and falls in love with his collection

The warm smell of parchment is an aphrodisiac to him.

Surely, there must be something stimulating about sitting in a high ceilinged room, walled in by majestic tomes and musty paperbacks on all sides, flipping through centuries of tales waiting to be told.

When a book is opened, time stands still for a special man as the moment is sheer magic for him. Magic that continues to tie B. Krishnamurthy to his books.

Bibliophile Krishnamurthy is the proud possessor of 70,000 titles. His ‘Gnanalaya’ Research Library at Tirukokarnam near Pudukottai is easily one of the biggest private libraries in the country. The USP of his library is the wide collection of priceless first editions in Tamil.

“First editions are always special. Often, subsequent editions are shorn off the preface, forewords and valuable introductions that the author may have written. These provide a rare insight into the life and times of the author, the social and historical context which can enhance research.”

Full report here Hindu

Competing on technology to build global wealth

Today’s global war is one of wealth, rather than military, and what can help generate wealth can be a focus on, among other things, technologies, suggests Handel Jones in ‘ChinAmerica: The uneasy partnership that will change the world’ (www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

In the US, individual companies such as Cisco, Apple, IBM, Google, Microsoft, and HP are highly innovative and have high market share in these industries around the world, the author notes. “A number of these companies are also creating new market opportunities. It is, consequently, important to regard these companies as part of the solution for building wealth.”

Restructuring plan
Cautioning that these are not enough, Jones advises the US that additional corporations in other markets need to be stimulated so that in the aggregate they create a positive trade balance. The combination of the Internet, mobile broadband access, demand for better medical care, and the need for more efficient automobiles and transportations systems will create a range of new business opportunities, he assures.

Full report here Hindu

For an inclusive business growth

Bottom of the pyramid, you may know as where potential profits could reside. Perhaps it is also time to get introduced to ‘Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder,’ the title of a new book from Harvard by Jody Heymann. The book takes up three questions: Are there additional ways to increase a company’s success? Can there be profits in the private sector while bringing benefits to others? Is there a way for the company and its employees to succeed together?

The answer to these questions comes in the form of success stories of companies from around the world; companies which have been profitable for their owners and shareholders not only while being profitable for their employees, but because they have been profitable for their employees.

These firms have been able to do this for a simple reason, the author explains. How work is structured, how it is rewarded, and how workplaces encourage employee engagement are all central to the profitability of firms and to the quality of the daily lives of working men and women, she adds. “Employees determine 90 per cent of most businesses’ profitability.”

Full review here Hindu

Myth of homogeneity of internal customers

People are more attracted to companies that would provide customised people practices, and they are more likely to remain there and perform at their best, write Susan M. Cantrell and David Smith in ‘Workforce of One’ (www.hbr.org). The book turns around a traditional belief of organisations as places that demand you fit them and says that you can design organisations to fit the employee.

Such organisations, as the authors describe, can optimise the performance of every individual by treating each employee as ‘workforce of one’ with unique needs, aspirations, and preferences, rather than treating the workforce as a single homogeneous entity.

Shape your own jobs
The book discusses extensively the case of Best Buy which allows its employees to shape their own jobs in such a way as to draw on their own unique interests and strengths. For example, ‘store employees are encouraged to use their own words and personality’ to customise the company’s basic selling process. In the ‘Results-Only Work Environment’ of Best Buy, employees can ‘largely define their own learning experiences’ through blogs, wikis, YouTube, and other peer-to-peer technologies.

Full report here Hindu

'Nobel is recognition of Spanish language'

Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa said the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to him on Thursday represented a world recognition of the Spanish language.

Vargas Llosa said hours after the Swedish Academy for Nobel prizes announced him this year's winner that it came as a "total surprise" because he thought he was out of the running in the past two decades.

Vargas Llosa, 74, said he thought he would be spending his days quietly in Lima, Madrid and New York until early Thursday, when he learned that he had won the most prestigious literary award in the world.

"I was not a candidate for the past 20 years," Vargas Llosa said. "Look, because of the Swedish Academy, my life has changed. It will be a mad house, but I will try to survive."

Full report here Hindustan Times

KBC quiz book hits stands

The Official Kaun Banega Crorepati Quiz Book, 110 Crore Hindustani, compiled by a team comprising quiz whiz Siddhartha Basu, also the producer of the show from Big Synergy, will hit stands today across the country. The book, launched last week in Mumbai by host Amitabh Bachchan, is Kapish Mehra, the owner of Rupa & Co, the book’s publishers, confirms the news and says, “The subscription was double of its first print run. We’ve rarely had this kind of a situation where our first edition is overbooked or should I say, oversubscribed, even before it hits the stands. It’s a positive sign.”

The first edition of the book runs into 90,000 copies, of which 20,000 were ordered from Bachchan’s hometown of Allahabad. “There’s no denying the fact that Bachchan sir’s following is unprecedented and he’s a rage there. I’m not surprised that there’s a street named after him. I’m sure once the show is on air, the demand for the copies will shoot up,” says Mehra.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Mario Vargas Llosa – the ‘European-thinking’ author

The life of Peruvian-born author Mario Vargas Llosa is like the story of the prodigal son.

Peru’s most famous author was on Thursday awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. He has lived and worked for half his adult life in Europe and North America, winning numerous prizes along the way, among them the 1995 Cervantes Prize and the 1996 German Peace Prize sponsored by the German publishers and booksellers association.

As a result, the author is often referred to as a “European-thinking” writer.

But only three of Vargas Llosa’s numerous novels are not related to Peru. These are ‘The War at the End of the World’ and his two most recent works, ‘The Feast of the Goat: A Novel’ and ‘The Way to Paradise: A Novel’. Everything else by the Madrid-based author, who by his own account lived in more than 40 homes in his life, was about life in his native country.

Full report here Hindu

BJP sends books on RSS to Rahul Gandhi

Upset over Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi's remarks about the "fanatical" Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday sent a collection of books on the Hindu group to Gandhi to enlighten him about its "contribution in nation building".

"We want that the 'Yuvraj' (prince) of the Congress must learn first about RSS before giving any comments on it. For this, we have sent a collection of six books to him," BJP spokesperson Vijay Pathak told reporters here.

"We hope after reading the books, ignorant Rahul will gain some knowledge about the Sangh and also the activities the organisation undertakes for helping the citizens of the country," he added.

Full report here NDTV

Literature Nobel for Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa (74), celebrated Peruvian-Spanish author and one of the most renowned novelists of his generation, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat".

After the award was announced, Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy said that Mr. Llosa was "one of the great Latin American storytellers — a master of dialogue who has been searching for the elusive concept known as the total novel, and who believes in the power of fiction to improve the world."

While Mr. Llosa is known for his prolific writing that included comedies and murder mysteries, his most powerful novels have contained commentary on historical and political conditions in his native Peru and other parts of Latin America. The "monumental" work that Conversation in the Cathedral (1969) represents for example, was deeply concerned with the ravaging of Peruvian politics and government under the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría in the 1950s.

Full report here Hindu

With tale of love, Mohammed Hanif escapes Pakistan's realities

It's not always easy to do so, but Pakistani journalist-writer Mohammed Hanif of 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes' fame has turned his mind off from the grim truths confronting his country with a love story that touches on terror and trauma.

An extract from Hanif's new novel, Butt and Bhatti was published in the Pakistan Granta 112, a special issue of the magazine devoted to the country. The roller-coaster tale weaves itself around a policeman, Teddy Butt, and a nurse, Alice Bhatti.

'This is the first time I am trying to write a love story. It is one of those great Pakistani civilian love stories,' Hanif, who was in Kerala to attend the Kovalam Literary Festival, told IANS.

The book will be published next year in Britain and India. The inspiration for the book comes from what is going on in the country.

'I am a journalist by profession and I am grounded in realities. I have to write 1,200 words about them often. But when you are writing a book - in a way you are trying to escape what is happening around you, our darker side. It is a grown up thing to do, because one can't really go back to being a child - not at my age,' said Hanif, born in 1964.

Full report here Sify

Multimedia creates buzz at book fair

The world's biggest book fair was inaugurated on Tuesday, with an increased number of exhibitors expected to focus on the digital and multimedia sectors that are rapidly transforming the industry.

The fair expects 7,533 exhibitors from 111 countries, a three-percent increase on the previous year, the exhibition's director Juergen Boos told reporters.

"Well-told stories are the engine of the book fair and new technologies ensure one thing above all: the demand for content is increasing," he said.

Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the German publishers and booksellers association which organises the fair, said only about one percent of the 9.6-billion-euro German book market was currently made up by digital offerings. However, he said he could see the market rising to 10 per cent in the near future.

Full report here Hindustan Times 

Old wine in new bottle

More like fine aged wine, Delhi’s rich past and present, flora and fauna, and its delectable flavours find place in the pages of this set of books

You could call it jumping on the Commonwealth Games bandwagon or smart packaging. But you could also call it presenting a mostly first-rate selection of fiction and non-fiction books that have the Capital city as their focus.

The big daddy of English publishing in India, Penguin Books, has unveiled the Delhi Bookshelf, a set of 21 titles, 20 of which have been published previously. Three-four books each have been slotted in different categories—anthologies, biographies, histories, stories and food. Two titles each come under journeys and “others”. And one of the two in this last hold-all category is the gem Trees of Delhi, by the film-maker-turned-self-taught naturalist Pradeep Kishen. A delightful compendium of the trees that can be found in Delhi—non-native species planted along its boulevards and in its many gardens, as well as those found in the wild in the Ridge area—it has bite-size nuggets of historical and general anecdotes, photos and diagrams, all presented with a simple and straightforward elegance.

“The last Englishman will be an Indian”—maybe so, but many Dilliwalas are coming around to the view that the last of their ilk will turn out to be a Scotsman. We are talking, of course, about William Dalrymple, author of another classic in this list, City of Djinns. His more recent offering, a biography of Bahadur Shah Zafar, titled The Last Mughal, makes the cut too, as does his essay in the excellent anthology, Celebrating Delhi, edited by Mala Dayal and released just a couple of months ago. The other personage in this collection is the redoubtable and irrepressible Khushwant Singh, as a novelist (Delhi) and as an editor of an anthology (City Improbable: Writings on Delhi). Singh has also contributed a memorable piece on his father Sir Sobha Singh, who built and owned large chunks of New Delhi, to Celebrating Delhi.

Full report here Mint

Penguin India bags rights for Kiran Desai’s new novel, Pamuk

Ravi Singh, editor-in-chief and publisher of Penguin India, said, "Being chosen to publish Orhan Pamuk is easily among the biggest moments in Penguin India’s history. Also it is a thrill and a privilege to publish a writer of Kiran’s astonishing skill..." Penguin India has acquired the subcontinent rights for two of the most eagerly sought after authors in the literary world — Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai’s new novel “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s next three works including his new novel “A Strangeness in My Mind“.

Desai became the youngest woman to win the Man Booker Prize when her second novel “The Inheritance of Loss” (Penguin India) won the coveted literary prize in 2006. “The Inheritance of Loss” went on to become an international bestseller, and has sold an astounding 190,000 copies in India alone.

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” promises to be bigger and even more compelling. Bought on the basis of a brilliant four page synopsis, the rights to publish the novel have been hotly contested by all the leading publishers of the world. The novel will be published in 2012.

Full report here Hindu

Bookwise: Friend, philosopher, field guide

Bird books and plant finders are not just for treks, they can bring the planet's wonders to your armchair

A friend recently gave us a field guide modestly titled Some South Indian Butterflies. He tried to buy it for us from the author, K. Gunathilagaraj, but the author made a present of it instead. So we consider this book particularly friendly.

Until now, to identify the butterflies in our green acre, I relied on a nephew and on “Common Butterflies of India” by Gay, Kehimkar and Punetha. It is an old but thorough book. From its mixed collection of line drawings, black-and-white photos and colour plates, I managed to name most of what I saw and also improve my own butterfly photos.

The new book, with colour photos on every page, is more exhaustive and easier to use. In just one read it answered several of my butterfly questions. It also replaced my confident assertions with the joys of taxonomic puzzlement. Once I would have declared that the beauty fluttering over the trellis was a crimson rose. Now I know it may be a common rose, a common mormon, a malabar rose or even a red helen. Then there are the delightful, oxymoronic names: how can a butterfly be imperial and at the same time common?

Full report here Hindu