Best Reads Of January: 7 Books That Will Take You On Journeys You Never Made

Ask yourself a simple question – why do you read books? The answer won’t be simple in an age when all-pervasive screens rule our life and we either stare or scan, instead of reading. When was the last time you curled up with a good cuppa and a great book (and a snuggling pet) that made you forget your smartphone? For many of us, it could be a rare experience nowadays, as was revealed in a recent survey. In July last year, a HuffPost/YouGov poll of 1,000 US adults found that 28% had not read a single book over the past one year. That may sound alarming and things are even worse at home. India’s literacy rate stands at 74% as per the 2011 census.

On the flip side, India hosts huge book fairs (New Delhi World Book Fair and the ongoing Kolkata Book Fair 2014 have earned their fair share of global fame over the years) and great literary events like the recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival that bring together some of the greatest thinkers and writers from all over the world. That again, is impressive, but let us not just pay lip service to books and booklovers. Turn into a booklover yourself and pick up one that intrigues you (they have a great way of finding their way to the right person as soon as you look at the display).

To help you further, we will go on a journey of discovery together and discuss 5-10 books published each month. They may or may not be the next big things in the world of printed words. But on hindsight, they need not be so. “The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts,” says American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. What more can we expect from a work of art? It handholds us, leads us deep into an experience called Life and makes us fall in love with the new world revealed before us. Read them and be a part of the world without boundaries. Here we go…

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