Recently in Books Category

I'm doing my annual trip to Kolkata, India, to spend time with relatives, and attend a friend's wedding reception. A few days back, B, my aunt, and I hit Oxford Bookstore, a lovely 89-year-old bookstore in the middle of town.

I ended up buying about a dozen books. Some of the books I'll be hauling back home were already on my reading list: Aravind Adiga's White Tiger (the latest Booker winner), Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies (the latest from a fave writer), and Manjula Padmanabhan's Escape (the new novel by a smart feminist Indian SF writer I've been really enjoying). Others were from novelists I've never heard of, including Devdutt Pattnaik's The Pregnant King, Indrajit Hazra's The Bioscope Man, and Nayantara Sahgal's Mistaken Identity.

Our trip to Oxford Bookstore was full of particularly acute synchronicity:

• Earlier that day, my aunt, an Indian historian, had got the news that her latest book has gone to press, via Oxford University Press India
• While browsing, B and I ran into acquaintances we'd met at our friend's wedding reception the night before
• California Bengali scientist Mani Bhaumik (co-inventor of the laser) was sitting at the next table from us at the bookstore cafe, signing a new popular science book
• We ran into Raka Ray, from UC Berkeley's Center for South Asian Studies, as she dashed into the store looking for a book; she's someone all three of us know as a friend or colleague
• While in the checkout line, the man in front of me looked weirdly familiar; I struck up a conversation, and he turned out to be UC Berkeley economist Pranab Bardhan, in town for a few days

That Californian Bengali bibliophile connection is quite something.

I'm in Kolkata, India, for my cousin's wedding. I've been enjoying being part of a Big Fat Bengali Wedding, but I was hoping to spend the weekend at the Kolkata Book Fair, the third largest book fair in the world. This year's theme was American literature, featuring guests like Paul Theroux, Bharati Mukherjee, and a delegation of American poets; I was particularly interested in seeing what kind of reception they'd get.

Unfortunately, the event’s been cancelled at the last minute, due to a decision by the Kolkata High Court to bar the organizers from holding the event at the planned venue, due to a high likelihood of environmental damage. (The organizers had been kicked out of their previous venue the year before for the same reason, and hadn't done adequate planning to find a space capable of handling the popular event's high-intensity noise and environmental impacts.) The cancellation's been devastating to writers, bibliophiles, and book-related businesses getting ready for the biggest book fair in Asia.

So what of the American delegation? The local book community's helped the Americans reschedule many events at universities and bookstores around town, and the US Embassy assures us that all isn't lost.

Most Kolkata residents are disappointed at the turn of events; so am I, but unlike local bibliophiles, I may not get another chance to make it back to Kolkata in late January for the fair. In the meantime, I'm making do hitting up local bookstores, making my suitcase heavier, book by book.