Not all bookly gems, though, arrive in such a blaze of media hype. Few may have heard of EHA (E.H. Aitken), teacher, customs official, founder-member of the Bombay Natural History Society and author of such memorable books like The Tribes on My Frontier and A Naturalist on the Prowl. But nearly a 100 years after his death, EHA's admirers (he was the role model for Salim Ali, M. Krishnan and other naturalists) have been hunting in antique bookstores, ready to pay the going price of Rs 15,000 for his out-of-print editions. No longer. Permanent Black's co-publisher Anuradha Roy was gifted a treasure trove of EHA's books by her Ranikhet neighbour, Durga Kala, and has now brought out two of his best-known works in one edition, Zoo in the Garden, with original line drawings.
Scholastic, which bought the world marketing rights for the Potter series, may have missed the bus on grabbing the Indian rights. When the first book hit the stands, they decided they just didn't have the kind of retail distribution network the Potter books need. But that doesn't mean they want to forego their slice of the Potter pie: the children's publisher is queuing up like hundreds of other retailers at Penguin's doors for its share of advance copies, which it'll sell via its book clubs in schools. And cheaper, too: Rs 199 less than the marked price of Rs 899.
