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Oh, to be young `n' reading
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It's now cool to be caught with a book, discovers ANAND SANKAR
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FINE PRINT Reading is a style statement these days PHOTO: SAMPATH KUMAR G.P.
Looks like The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter did what years of lecturing on the virtues of reading did not do — give the old habit of reading a new lease of life.
A good example of this is Yash, a 25-year-old marketing executive whose daily dose of reading is just browsing through a dozen-odd newsletters in his mailbox, besides the odd management book once in a way. Everything changed when his office was abuzz with news of The Da Vinci Code.
"I am usually so busy that I just want to crash when I get back home. Then all of a sudden everyone was talking about this book. Just so that I didn't feel left out, I gave it a read. Though I wasn't very impressed by the book, it helped me get back to reading," he says.
Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling seem to have done this successfully to two different generations of readers. While Harry Potter has managed to woo pre-teens and early teens to reading, with sales of over quarter of a billion copies, Dan Brown has managed to get people in the age group of 16-35 reading. The Da Vinci Code has sold over 25 million copies so far and has been translated in over 44 languages.
Buying a book nowadays is even considered a style statement. The books you are seen reading and the ones that are on your bookshelf can actually make you look good. "I read everything that I can lay my hands on. But I stay away from books like Sidney Sheldon. I buy books that I feel would look good on my bookshelf. Also my friends and I have a common book pool from which we borrow," says Itisha, an advertising professional. Tastes are very fickle when it comes to buying a book. But as The Da Vinci Code and Harry potter have shown, hype and good reviews can boost sales quite a bit. Harry Potter even busted the box office and now Tom Hanks is going to star in the movie version of The Da Vinci Code. "When I go to buy a book I look out for a lot of things. But I mostly go by word of mouth or by reviews. I am a Christian and after I read The Da Vinci Code, a lot of questions popped up in my head. I even went to my priest to clarify them," says Tara, a corporate communications executive. The Internet, once blamed for the fall in the number of people reading books, is now turning into a forum where people can debate. Here is what Ashanka has to say about Dan Brown in her blog: "Nobody should ever buy any book by Dan Brown. In fact he ought to pay us for reading his tosh. And what a tosh. Angels and Demons had the lamest ever ending of all the books I've encountered. What makes me even angrier is that this clever manipulator is hailed as the messiah of reading. He is just a terrible author with a penchant for ultra-lame endings." And her friend Abhishek Nag agrees. "I had the plot in The Da Vinci Code figured out in the first 30 pages. It was quite irritating." But the breed of "serious readers" is also strong with some not even venturing out to read books by new authors. "I mostly read non-fiction. Before I buy a book I try few references or reviews from people who have read it. One that I really enjoyed was Mammaries of the Welfare State by Upmanyu Chatterjee. And if nothing new is available Ruskin Bond is always there," says Vishal Gunni, a law student.
The New York Times top 5 at a glance
Fiction
1. No place like home, by Mary Higgins Clark
2. The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd
3. Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover
4. The Da Vince Code, by Dan Brown
5. Saturday, by Ian McEwan
Non-Fiction
1. My Life So Far, by Jane Fonda
2. The World is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman
3. Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
4. Memory and Identity, by John Paul II
5. A Deadly Game, by Catherine Crier with Cole Thompson.
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