Together we read

Swati Rai

Break neck speed of life and the many digital distractions have taken a toll on all that asked for a little time and patience. Reading is one of them. But in these times when literature festivals are in, book readings a fad and e-readers a necessity, the number of book clubs around you are on a rise. From a leisurely pursuit, reading is today a community, social experience. Mushrooming of book clubs was a necessity as such.

One such readers’ joint is Delhi Book Lovers (DBL) formed by Kunal Gupta and Meenakshi Goyal. The duo says the idea behind it is to promote literature and reading within the youth and every educated person. “The first step was to connect with people who were fond of reading or writing. We started hosting book discussions in order to mobilize people. The idea was to get readers who are hard pressed for time to get back to reading and ensure that it becomes a qualitative experience for them and give them a platform to meet and discuss the book,” says Gupta.

As DBL grew, it was approached by leading publishing houses to promote their books and authors (as a free service, DBL says). Such endeavours led to many first-time authors seeking an opportunity to promote their books — promoting reading in turn. A win-win situation?

Not really, feels Amrita Talvar, senior manager Harper Collins, India. Having travelled to tier 2 cities for book publicity tours, she feels that more than such clubs, what’s sustaining the reading habit is the fact that there is a growing breed of homegrown bloggers and, of course, word of mouth publicity! Having said that, there is another dynamic to the debate — that of literary festivals cropping up in towns like Sangrur and Panchkula.

However, very often these book clubs are a meeting of similar minds. And that is where they have an advantage. Just like Vaishali Mathur, executive editor and head of language publishing, Penguin Random House India. She has a book club on Facebook where members discuss books and authors and she has free giveaways every week. “I feel that in the past two years, I can see a growth in the number of book discussion forums. There are also book reading challenges that have contributed to this. However, I’m not sure how many of them last very long. I see people very enthusiastic in the beginning and then it sort of wanes,” she feels out.

Social media and increasing digital literacy have managed to sustain and augment this trend. People are making decisions about buying, suggesting and reading books based on social networking newsfeed and information on micro-blogging sites. This has resulted in reading as a hobby available to most all over India. Some have given a structure to this hobby and diversified into many off shoots.

Shivani Chaturvedi, founder member of the Agra Book Club (ABC) shares that they started with a 15-member team that now boasts of a 100 people waiting to be auditioned! What started as an effort to put the city of Agra on the literary map has mushroomed into Taj Colloquium, a literary initiative. Along with organizing creative writing, cartoon making and painting workshops for children, ABC’s online members get together for a discussion on a book uploaded regularly. Shivani adds, “We are particular about choosing people as we don’t want to entertain social butterflies and wannabes, who think of book clubs as kitty party baubles!”

Combining reading and sense of community is surely a win-win situation, one that needs to be nurtured.