For Books Central
Some sleuths landed up at the World Book Fair in Delhi on an extraordinary mission: to get the 1,300 exhibitors to deposit books they’ve published in the National Library in Calcutta. In theory, a copy of every book published in India in all languages since 1954 is supposed to be deposited and catalogued at the National Library. But librarians there say less than 30-35 per cent land up there. And no wonder: the penalty for not sending a book to the library is a mere Rs 50. At the fair, when the National Library team approached individual publishers, they were at first reluctant to part with their books. “What’s in it for us?” was the most frequently asked question. But the librarians managed to collect 5,200 books, mostly in English and Hindi. Not much, considering there might be around 75,000 new books published in India every year.
In The Writeasy
An American survey has exposed what we all knew in our guts: most leading literary magazines review books by “white male literary darlings”. Guardian’s literary editor had an explanation: women write less non-fiction and “...are much more reluctant to write or comment on subjects about which they don’t feel themselves to be complete authorities.” Something, she felt, “which doesn’t seem to trouble men to the same degree.”
Men In The Cart
Is an author usually male? It would seem so from the list of authors Flipkart trotted out for interaction with the public during the World Book Fair—Kapil Sibal, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, William Dalrymple, Ashok Banker, Bimal Jalan, Shiv Khera, Suhel Seth. The one female presence: Gul Panag, who was introducing yet another (male) author: Sachin Garg.
