Reading...

There was an article in the Sunday supplement of The Hindu a couple of weeks ago about how reading as a habit is making a comeback. The author's point, I think, was the advent of books like Harry Potter had made reading more interesting for the teenagers and hence the reading habit had revived.

I don't know about the teenagers, but I certainly think there is a great variety from Harry Potter to Artemis Fowl available, much better than the restricted list of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys I grew up with. And whatz more there is this entire genre called `Young Adult' books which have even serious writers in there.

Anyways the point I was trying to make is that the author perhaps assumed that the books for teenagers and their sales figures probably points to a trend of increasing readership among the young. While I have no statistics to either prove or disprove the point, I do know that a lot of adults also buy the `young adult' fiction these days.

The second point which came to my mind is that most of the larger bookstores these days be it Landmark, Oxford, Odessey, Crossword etc, are all evolving into `lifestyle' stores. Which means they sell books, music, video, gifts and a lot of such things. Except for The Strand bookstore that firmly is a bookish nook, I sometimes find visits to other bookstores a bit tedious as the crowd is quite like a mall or a department store. Strand in Mumbai, which I used to haunt while I lived in Mumbai was that shop which made browsing a different kind of experience, since here books were arranged in some haphazard logic. But nevertheless it was clearly a place for the booklover, full of the lovely smell of new books in a small space further cramped by stacks of books on the floor. They also had some nice editions which separated them from the crowd.I also miss the nice ambience of the Mahalakshmi Crossword; the new store on Kemps Corner is one of the lifestyle variety.

As for the reading habit, I think those who loved books always kept buying them, never mind if reading was fashionable or not. The good trend that I did notice is that the variety of books and writers that are today available in India are much higher. Perhaps it is this increased variety that is driving up book sales rather than any `return of the reading habit' trend.Maybe people earlier bought all these kind of books abroad and are today buying them in India.

But having said that, I must also state my pet grouse - books are expensive in India. The Amar Chitra Kathas and Tinkle that I used to buy for Rs 2, now cost Rs 30. That actually puts them out of the reach of some of the middle class children and definitely out of the lower middle and other lower income groups.

So, reading public, here is my submission - there are a lot of books to read, a greater variety of them and probably a lot more people can afford to buy books these days. But the prices are high and the selling ambience not particularly friendly which is contrary to the theory of increasing buying patterns.If the publishing industry has grown in value, it probably is on account of increased prices and not because of volume increases.