However, despite many obstacles, it appears that college and university students in India are still fighting to make space for books in their lives, exhibiting a wide range of reading preferences, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama.
Books on Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Vedanta literature worth over Rs 50 lakh were sold in the recently-concluded 47th International Kolkata Book Fair.
Following the opening of the Ram Mandir, mythology has surged in popularity at the fair, with the "365 Vedas" book by Ajay Mago, renowned for Om Books International's children's fiction, emerging as the top-selling title in the genre.
As the year draws to a close, the literary world beckons with five captivating recommendations that promise to enrich your reading experience.
Kakar, who swears by Murphy’s law, takes his readers on a rollercoaster ride from the bizarre to the brazen
Our morals, he says, constrain us, bias us, and push us in the wrong direction because we fail to understand their limited aims. The biggest challenges our species face, whether global warming, nuclear proliferation or the rise of robots, are pan-human.
Pointing to the lacunae that exist in the system, he says "there is an urgency in the country to reverse the trend of the past decade so that independent research, assessment, and evaluation of public policies is not on an extinction course" in the book, which is subtitled: "The Rise of Populism, Decline in Social Research".
Through relatable everyday characters of Palash and Jigna, the story of rosy first love unfurls in 2004, amid the backdrop of universities, families and even the railways.
"Those amongst us who recognise this fact in our story, draw on courage to move on from it, and not given in to the self-absorbing cry of the ego. We may feel the ego's plaintive, wistful pang, but may put it to use in being sensitive towards the origins of another's pain,"
"One can mull over a story idea every day after it has occurred and yet not write it. The mind keeps going to it and working on it and then one day when one sits down it is ready to become a story. It is only a question of recognising that moment when it can become a story,"
