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An Evening of Journeys

Its getting hot enough to start dreaming of cooler places and better times!

Come by for an evening that will transport you to far off places and little known worlds. Attend the Mughal court at The Red Fort and hop onto the traditional palanquins to visit bustling market places and moon lit Yamuna, stop by Kerala and if you seek something farther off- get tips on how to travel through Europe on “half –a –shoestring” budget.

Programme:

Ongoing : Book Swap (6:00-8:15 P.M). (Works just the way it did last time.)

Ongoing: Exhibit of new titles by various publishers.

6:00-6:30 Madhulika Liddle reads from her travel writing and novel followed by Q&A

6:30-:7:00 Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu reads from Adrift followed by Q & A

7:00- 7:30 Mridula Koshy reads from her forthcoming novel set in Kerala and in the US Midwest.

7:30-8:15 Open Mic

Entry Fee : Free!

The authors featuring at the event are women who at some point chose to take a slightly different path, as authors and as people.

Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu cut loose from the pressures to conform and decided to travel through Europe-alone and for the cost of a dozen beers. Madhulika Liddle, a one time corporate employee left it all behind to wear many hats. A blogger and an author, Madhulika Liddle writes both about her journeys to far off places and about an excursion back into history with her evocative thriller set in Mughal era Delhi. She also takes a jaunt down cinema’s memory lane with her popular blog http://dustedoff.wordpress.com. Mridula Koshy has been a cashier at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, swap-meet sales clerk, backstage dresser at fashion shows, waitress, polisher of silverware, writing adviser, a professional advocate of multiculturalism, a house painter, receptionist at a law firm, collator of tax forms, union organizer and community organizer. She has also made life-altering journeys between two continents and woven her experiences into stories.

At the “Open Mic” session, share your own stories about places far and close or read from your favorite travelogue or memoir, take us to another era- past or future. Take us on a journey.

Join us for the Book Swap where you get to take back as many books as you bring to the table. Sharing is caring!

About the authors:

Madhulika Liddle worked in hospitality, advertising and instructional design before deciding to devote all her energies to writing in English. Over the years, several of her short stories have been published in anthologies or have won awards. Her story A Morning Swim, about an eight-year old orphan who dives into the Yamuna to collect coins in order to make ends meet, won the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s Short Story Competition in 2003. Madhulika lives in NewDelhi and spends her spare time reading (mainly historical detective fiction), watching old cinema, and — whenever possible —traveling. Her first novel, The Englishman’s Cameo, is a detective story set in 17th century Delhi, and was published by Hachette India in October 2009.

Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu, travel enthusiast and author, is the youngest of four siblings born into an aristocratic family of Punjab. Though “Have Money, Will Travel” is the (almost) respectable adage that independent writing professional, would like to adopt as her life’s philosophy, he is currently a devoted disciple of the “Little or No Money, Will Yet Travel” school of thought. She encapsulates her inexpensive travel experiences in her forthcoming travelogue, Adrift: A junket junkie in Europe.
She has traveled extensively in Asia, North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and SE Asia; simultaneously exploring the charms within India. She recently participated in the 3rd Indo-Bhutan Friendship Rally, the only entrant from North India. A travel & food columnist with Hindustan Times, Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu has been regularly contributing articles to travel magazines, airline magazines and national dailies for over 15 years. She is also on the book review panel of The Tribune, having reviewed numerous travel, food and human-interest stories.

Mridula Susan Koshy is the author of a collection of short stories If It Is Sweet, which won her the Shakti Bhatt First Book Award. Before returning to India, she worked as a trade union and community organiser in the US. Her stories have appeared in Wasafiri, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review and Existere, as well as in anthologies in India, the UK and Italy. She is currently working on a novel. She lives in New Delhi with her partner and her three children.

Open Mic : The name says it all. This is an open forum for you to come and express yourself, tell us your story or read to us from your favorite piece of writing. It could be fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose. Time allotted per speaker would be 5 minutes. Looking forward to hearing you!

Book Swap : Bring in books that you really liked but don’t want to read again and swap them out with ones that fellow book lovers have bring. Just make sure they are in great condition! Take as many as you bring.

Unusual Library Exhibits

Some of your may have caught the news about the exhibit of archival materials from Salman Rushdie at the Emory University Library. Display includes his four Apple laptops (one ruined by spilled coke) and several hand written journals. Incidentally, its not the hand written notes but all the digital stuff that’s giving archivists nightmares. With technology evolving at lightening speed your hi-tech dream gadget today will be extinct when you wake up tomorrow morning. How then does one save all the hundreds of gigabyte worth of digital information and actually be able to do so in a way that it can be “played back” later. We all (at least my generation) have dusty and chipped VHS cassettes but nothing to play them on! The question of digital vs. non digital has opened up discussion about evolution of very act of writing itself. Here’s an interesting article about the exhibit and its efforts to understand the modern complex relationship between technology and creativity.

On a very different note, the New York Public Library has displayed on its website scans of restaurant menus. If you are a food historian, an artist or plain foodie,  you can print them for free or order prints from the library. Most of them are from early 1900s and are way more beautifully decorated than the modern slap -dash print-outs that one gets at restaurants. Enjoy! (Courtesy:www.thekitchn.com)

Alice in Underland

Returning once more to yer olde topic of books into movies, Tim Burton has done it again. He took the classic and turned it around a few times clockwise, then anti clockwise, up-side down and inside out. To help him with these imaginary acrobatics was his trusted player Johnny Depp. To quote Carroll “What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?”. Same thing for movies, I guess. What good is a movie if its not going to dazzle the eyes and rattle the soul?Did you see the movie yet? What do you think? Here’s a review and another one to help you decide. (Courtesy: www.hbook.com, http://movies.nytimes.com)

Flick or Lit?

There is the book…and then there is the movie based on that book. If you are like me, you want to read your book and then when, hopefully at least a year later, the movie comes out, you go out with your best friend to watch it. Then, you come out shake your head and swear you’ll never let a movie ruin the book, everrr again! You learn, forget then repeat.

Scenario 2: You missed the book and now are under duress from aforementioned friend. You go out and watch the movie before you’ve had a chance to get your hands on the book…what then?

Do you:

1. Run and buy  or rent  the book?

2. You don’t care if you read the book now that you have experienced “The Experience”?

3. Swear you’ll NEVER read the book, so that you can never be disappointed?

4. None of the above i.e “I always prefer the movie anyways”

What’s your whole “made into film” experience like?

Read the review for the movie based on Rick Riordan’s popular novel The Lightning Thief here.

Memory flashes from the Book Fair…

It seems like the lull after the storm. January is a complete fog in our minds. First there was the  big move into a new office space, followed by the Book Swap & Meet and then the crazy (but fun!) gearing up for the World Book Fair stall and finally 10 days of being on the feet at the fair ( thank you Dansko shoes!)

If there is one thing you can do apart from selling books and talking about book and breathing in ink fumes from freshly bought books…it is people watching. Its like any other mela….abundant with characters and colours. All you need is a bit of patience and a busy venue and the ability to observe without malice and without prejudice…

1. Curiously (and somewhat disturbingly) there is an abiding fascination with Hitler. It starts with queries about Mein Kampf but goes to anything that has anything to do with the man with the demi-moustache. Its usually men…very serious looking men…hmmm…

2. We women ( yeah, am generalizing here…but its a complimentary one, so I guess I can get away with it)…so, we women shop the same way all our lives.  There were bunches of school girls and young college girls and women in their middle ages that descended at our stall at various points of time. They -

a) Always arrive at the stall together and leave together and never ever leave anyone behind.

b) Suggest books with passion and vehemence, talking animatedly about what they liked and disliked. Always, always help their friend make an informed choice.

c) Never let their friend buy a book that they can lend to her later.

d) Always tell each other of better deals, if any ( or in our case, tell their friend its The Best deal around )

3. There are people out there who really live to bargain. You tell them its 25% off, they ask for a 45% off… you tell them there’s a free bag, they want one for their neighbor’s dog, you tell them it’s “Buy one get one Free”, they want to know if they can get five for the price of two, you tell them it’s flat Rs. 100/-, they ask if they can get free dhaniya-mirchi ( not really, but you get the picture!).

There are many more memories and observations that flash like a movie montage as we all come up for air before the next round of FriendsOfBooks excitement begins! Will keep you posted. If you have any observations of your own-share ‘em!

See pictures from the fair here.

What’s “Megawsome”?

What’s the point of being in the book business, which is a business of words really, if we can’t attempt every now and then to create a new word and see if it will stick and come back to us after a few days/ decades. SO, the new word we have for you is:

Megawsome

Conjunction of Mega + Awesome

Mega: Origin: form repr. Gk mégas large, great

Awesome: Slang. very impressive.

To spread the word about…er…the new word, we’re offering a

Megawsome Discount of 25% on all books at our stall at the World Book Fair this Saturday and Sunday.

You can use the words thusly in a conversation:

A: Did you know there’s a Megawsome Discount of 25% on all books at FriendsOfBooks stall this Saturday and Sunday?

B: Dude! That’s Megawsome!

A:  I love getting books from FriendsOfBooks Library and Online Bookstore.

B:  Yep. Me too. Saves me a Megawsome headache!

Here are details for you to come back and say the word to us:

Stall No. 181

Hall No. 5

Pragati Maidan

New Delhi

Useful Tips and Objective Observations

We’ve become Book Fair veterans…well sort off. We’ve been at two Delhi Book Fairs and this current one which is the mother lode for many big and small book businesses-The World Book Fair

Here are some thoughts if you are planning to come here ( If you aren’t you should! you should!)

1. Parking: The best place to park I am told is the lot on Bhairon Marg. Its closest to Gate 2 ( which is also one of the gates you can buy the Rs. 20 ticket). It is also the closest to us. . We are in  one of the big pyramid like Raj Reval structures i.e Hall 5. No matter where you park, you will have to walk. We are told there are pick up and drop shuttles. I haven’t seen them but then I haven’t seen the UFO’s either. If there is a sighting, I’ll let you know!

It is so enormous in fact, that after closing at 8:00 PM,  if it weren’t for the mill worker like crowds making their way to the special parking lot for exhibitors, I would never be able to get out of there. If you think “special parking lot” for exhibitors is a subtle posh show-off…consider this: The parking lot is really a dirt patch in the back of a restaurant with dust that rises 5 ft every time a car comes in/goes. So every morning, by the time we have made it out of the parking lot and into Pragati Maidan we look like a bunch of bedouins with our assorted bags and stuff.
There is a VIP parking lot, as is always the case with anything sarkari, but that’s unavailable to us.
The Delhi Book Fair is much more democratic that way and  everyone shares the honor ( and dignity) of walking on paved road.

2.  The Book Fair is spread far and wide within Pragati Maidan and in several cavernous halls. It is also not well marked and its not until you come up against the wall of the hall that you can tell if its a publisher hall or educational books hall or science hall etc etc. I went out to get coffee the first day and by the time I found my way back it was a frappe. I had also drained the battery on my mobile from all the walking and talking sirji.

Unlike the Delhi Book Fair, the NBT run World Book Fair did not give us handy maps and directories, so I will not be able to give you definitive info on what’s where. As it happens, neither can the Info Desk People. Most people rely on the goodwill of fellow wanderers. Yesterday a member told us that  on a previous visit when she asked for FriendsOfBooks, she was sent to Hall 14 ( we are in 5) and she had to go back home, check her email and come back the next day. Another gentleman was sent on a clockwise direction through the huge hall 5 before arriving at FriendsOfBooks, four stalls away from the Info Desk. SO…don’t ask, just follow your inner voice ( you are more likely to find what you are looking for…even God, I am told,  that way!).

3. To make it easier, all halls are assigned to a particular category. In the Publisher halls you will find all the …well….publishers, that’s the square white structure in the center. The publishers have swank set ups that shine and are spiffy. You can find any conceivable title there and there is PLENTY to choose from. There is helpful staff just like a bookstore to help you navigate your way through the maze. BUT ( and who doesn’t have one!) because of the razzle dazzle overheads, they are also unable to offer any or substantial discounts. So, if too much is too much for you, head to the distributors hall (i.e Us) where you will find a cross section from all publishers, discounts and decidedly less razzle-dazzle.

4. Sustenance. If you are coming for the day, pack a sandwich or three. The food is 1.5 times more expensive and 2.5 times less hygienic than your neighborhood Agarwal Sweet Point. The only decent thing we’ve found so far is an over-priced chapati sized pizza and Costa coffee. After day one, its packed-from-home-with-love-and-care for us. There is a golgappa seller who never seems to get any business but seeing as I have, the goings on behind the counter, I am sure the first person to put a golgappa in his mouth will simply keel over and die. Yeah, so avoid!

Just as an aside, please, please choose your footwear carefully. It aches my eyes to see heels the size of champagne flutes. I have seen many a women sitting on the steps, giving up too soon only because of their “achilles”  heels.

All in all, its a fair- a celebration and a chance to get out before the cruel summer forces us indoors, so see you soon!

The Difficulty of Being Good ( No ref to Mr. Gurcharan Das’s book)

The experience of being at the book fair is an exhilarating one. There are people-excited people, tired people, curious people, even some jaded people but the one kind of people that have caught our attention most are the little people. Kids ( including teenagers here) are often accompanied by their parents ( or is it the other way round?). Two incidents stood out yesterday. Perhaps those inclined towards psycho-analysis and/or parenting could throw better light on the meaning of these:

1. A kid walked in and while his parents were browsing, he picked up the popular title “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and settled down in a chair to read it. By the time the parents were done shopping for books at our stall, he was done reading almost a fourth of the book. When it came time to pay, as expected, the kid asked the parents to buy him the book he found so engrossing. The parents refused saying they had already bought some “classics” for him. I tried to put in the word for the kid because I could tell from his reactions that he did not want to read what was bought for him, but a more contemporary book that he ACTUALLY liked. After a few persuasive (to me and to the kid) arguments I made about the importance of going with the flow when inculcating the habit of reading , I realised that the parents had me all wrong. They thought I was being the gentle but pushy shopkeeper. I wasn’t! I wasn’t! They did not buy the book the kid wanted, the kid got the book he did not want to read and I got the fatiguing feeling you get after you are misunderstood by complete strangers and you can’t do anything about it.

2. Incident number two happened a little later in the evening. A young girl, perhaps about 15, came in with her parents. I could tell she was the big reader of the family and her parents were really supportive. They had about 10 bags with them filled with books. She saw The Lost Symbol at our stall. Apparently, she hadn’t been able to find it anywhere all day. Her parents were not too happy when they heard the price and were reluctant to spend so much on a book at the end of an obviously expensive shopping trip. I could see in their eyes the loving pain that can only be parental love. I tried to get the girl to come to the other side of the stall where we have books for a flat 100-200 There were lots of mysteries and thrillers, even a religio-mystery…but nothing could get her to change her mind. In the end, she bought the book. We offered a good discount to take some off the edge off for the parents.

In the first case it was us feeling shy recommending books to parents who I am sure took us for greedy booksellers and in the second we lost what money we could have made, and well, felt foolish for being good.

In any case it was all worth the experience and memories we will take back from the fair.

more from the trenches soon…

What a day!

It started off foggy and…well…stayed that way.

There’s a lot that can be said about the brave hearts who came despite the cold and grey, drawn by the love of books. At some point that morning every one of these people must have looked out of the window and looked again at the waiting razai…and yet they decided to come. From the feedback we’ve got ….and have been getting, none of them were disappointed.Pictures don’t lie!

As for us….it couldn’t have been a better winter day!



Photos courtesy: Ankur Ahuja, Natasha Badhwar