Reading habits: A PrintWeek survey

Leonard Fernandes
Co-founder, The Dogears Bookshop

What book are you currently reading?
A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel.

Your first memory of a book?
Enid Blyton, loaned by a friend.

One book you would recommend to a millennial?
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

One book about a city that made you yearn for the place?
The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher.

What’s the best reading advice you’ve ever been given?
Read every day for at least 15 minutes.

One classic you have not read?
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Do you have any paper trivia?
Not about paper but about printing. Although the first movable type was introduced in Europe in 1452, the “book” as we know it — with a flyleaf, title page, and indentations — didn’t appear until the early 1600s.

One author, living or dead, you would love to spend a 33-hour flight journey with?
Jeff Jarvis, author of The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the Internet.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the past 12 months?
A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi.

A book cover that you loved?
Knife, the recently published Rushdie memoir.

Which do you prefer: fiction or non-fiction?
Non-fiction.

What is the best translated book you’ve ever read?
A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi.

Your comment on the current publishing reality in your language?
A lot more needs to be done.

Sucharita Dutta-Asane 
Writer and editor

The book you are reading right now?
I read multiple books at a time. At present, I am reading Knife by Saman Rushdie; The Greatest Malayalam Stories Ever Told, edited by AJ Thomas; The Cooking of Books: A Literary Memoir by Ramachandra Guha; and Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories by Simon Van Booy.

Your first memory of a book?
The Secrets of World War II in two volumes. I still remember the thrill of stories that seemed distant from my reality yet the word ‘secret’ in the title made me feel part of a world that my friends were not privy to because they weren’t reading those stories.
One book in college that was taught awfully. The Merchant of Venice. It is taught awfully even now.

One book you would recommend to a millennial?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

One book that altered your literature view?
One story and then one novel, together. Mahashweta Devi’s Draupadi and then reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

Most underrated piece of literary fiction, according to you?
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

One book about a city that made you yearn for the city?
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk.

What’s the best piece of reading advice you’ve ever been given?
To read indiscriminately.

One classic you have not read?
War and Peace. Started reading but have never tried to complete it.

One living author who you would love to write the preface for your next book?
Kazuo Ishiguro.

One writing quote that you love to quote?
“Writing is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration.”

What was your strangest or most embarrassing blooper?
Not being able to say why I write what I write. 

One neglected work you think must be translated in all the languages of the world?
Agnigarbh by Mahasweta Devi.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the past 12 months?
Hellfire by Leesa Gazi (translated by Shabnam Nadiya, Eka Books); Tobie Nathan’s A Land Like You (Translated by Joyce Zonana, Seagull Books).

A book cover that you loved?
The Forgotten Cities of Delhi by Rana Safvi; Knife by Salman Rushdie.

Which do you prefer: fiction or non-fiction?
Depends on my mood. I love both.

Which is the best translated book you’ve ever read?
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.

Chandana Dutta
Translator, editor, author, and publisher

The book you are reading right now?
At any given point I read four to five books. Right now, these are Sheela Toby’s Valli: A Novel, Nabina Das’s Sanskarnama: Poetry for Our Times, Salman Rushdie’s Knife, A Woman Burnt by Imayam, Michael Hofmann’s Where Have You Been? Selected Essays.

Your first memory of a book?
A hardboard illustrated copy of Thumbelina, very prettily done. Of course, it must have been abridged. What I think of often about that book is its cover. A pasted-on plastic image of characters from the book seemed to shift around when the cover was tilted. I don’t know what that kind of image is called but it was a joyous book to hold.

One book in college that was taught awfully.
Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti.

One book you would recommend to a millennial?
There would be several, but I would choose to have fun with them looking through illustrated books on art, or encyclopaedias — my favourite being Thomas Bullfinch’s The Illustrated Age of Fable: Myths of Greece and Rome. These books are from another world almost, gorgeous and calming, and of course, informative. 

One book that altered your view of literature?
This is a continuous process. Every time I read something, I feel changed, and alive.

Most underrated piece of literary fiction, according to you?
By and large, our translations from India still need a major global breakthrough and conversation around them. We read and speak easily of Korean and Chinese literature, for example, but not our own.

One book about a city that made you yearn for the city?
KR Meera’s Hangwoman.

What’s the best piece of reading advice you’ve ever been given?
Very late in life, I heard someone say that if you read at least 2-3 books a week, imagine how many you would have read in 10 or 20 years. Or something to that effect. Although I read a lot, there’ve been very large gaps in my reading, and this pushes me to do better.

One classic you have not read?
James Joyce’s Ulysses.

One living author who you would love to write the preface for your next book?
B Jeyamohan. 

What is your ideal writing scenario?
Rested, with silence around, no disturbances. Many a time, late at night when everyone is in bed.

What was your strangest or most embarrassing blooper?
It happens ever so often when proofing. You think you’ve done your best, and then, out pops a mistake.

One neglected work you think must be translated into all the languages of the world?
In our bhasha scenario, there is so much that we access through English, at least I do, that one always ends up feeling ignorant. There’s much I don’t know about. In this situation, many of us – book lovers and those who work with making books – should pool our ideas to make wider avenues for such neglected works.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the past 12 months?
Best is a word best avoided but Jeyamohan’s Stories of the True would be one.

A book cover that you loved?
I, Salma by Red River Press.

What is the best translated book you’ve ever read?
There have been quite a few recently – Dukhi Dadiba and the Irony of Fate by Dadi Edulji Taraporewala; Jeyamohan’s Stories of the True; KR Meera’s Hangwoman; How to Love in Sanskrit: Poems by Anusha Rao and Suhas Mahesh.

Your comment on the current publishing reality in your language?
I feel fortunate that I work in English and equally with many of our bhashas because of my inclination toward translations and translated literature. In India, I feel strongly that this is the best way forward for publishing, to work from as many languages as possible. We are sitting on a gold mine of material – fiction, non-fiction and so much else. We haven’t managed to dig our way into all this writing yet. The publishing market is alive and energised at the moment, we need to do a lot more work with translated books. We need to build and strengthen conversations around promoting translations, so that they are noticed globally. Publishing and marketing are a matter of economics, but they also need a different focus and commitment to make our writers, and our translators, better known.

The book you are reading right now?
ULFA: The Mirage of Dawn by Rajeev Bhattacharjee and Murder Flies the Coop by Jessica Ellicot. I mostly read two books at a time.

Your first memory of a book?  
Phoolor Xadhu (Tales about Flowers), a children’s book in Assamese written by my uncle Dr Prasanna Goswami and gifted to me with love when I was little more than a toddler.

One book in college that was taught awfully.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

One book you would recommend to a millennial?
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus; it’s not about chemistry.

One book that altered your view about literature?
Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali.

Most under-rated piece of literary fiction, according to you? 
PG Wodehouse’s works featuring Jeeves. 

One book about a city that made you yearn for the city?
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk. I visited Turkey after reading the book.

One classic you have not read? 
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Thomas Edward Lawrence. 

One living author who you would love to write the preface for your next book?
Shashi Tharoor. Of course. 

One writing quote that you love to quote?
“You can’t wait for inspiration.” I say this all the time at the writing workshops that I conduct. 

One trivia about paper which you know?
Termites love paper. I know people whose manuscripts have sadly been vanquished by termites. 

What is your ideal writing scenario?
Sitting at my desktop with house sounds all around me and cooking fragrances wafting in from the kitchen. And of course, some junk food is at hand. 

What was your strangest or most embarrassing blooper?
When I didn’t recognise Shobhaa De at a literature fest to which we were both invited. We were in the author’s lounge, she was sitting nearby, and I went up to her and asked her where the coffee stand was. 

One author, living or dead, you would love to spend a 33-hour flight journey with? 
Agatha Christie.

One neglected work you think must be translated in all the languages of the world?
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. Though it will be almost impossible to translate the humour of it.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the past 12 months?
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese and Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang. 

A book cover that you absolutely loved?
Mine! The cover of A Full Night’s Thievery published by Speaking Tiger. 

Which do you prefer: fiction or non-fiction?
Depends on how well they are written. I love travelogues, for example, but also imagined stories. 

What is the best translated book you’ve ever read?
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

And finally, your comment on the current publishing reality in your language?
It’s really sad that our publishers don’t edit the manuscripts they get. Many are simply printers and to an extent, distributors. Editing seems to be an alien concept among Assamese publishers.