Blogging on Books

In a world flush with books I thought blogging about books was easy. No, it isn't. Descriptions and reviews of books are hard to come by. I had to search online quite a lot to get material to write about them, ensuring the poor writer some mileage. May articles aren't full reviews but pointers to reviews with an attribution and a back link. Albeit a drop in the ocean, in a manner of speaking. 

Nowadays newspapers ignore books. Only a few carry book reviews. Why bother? India ranks seventh in the number of books published in the world. Then why aren't book reviews and good books available. Reason: space for books is shrinking because sales aren't happening. Sales aren't happening because there aren't any book shops. There aren't any bookshops because people don't read. 

Please, please, teach your children to read and write. Otherwise our country will be a country of morons. For the past few days I saw a man in train - reasonably well dressed - reading Chetan Bhagat's "Five Point..." I don't know the full title. He was pointing to each letter and moving his mouth as he did so, something we did only when we were in primary school. This is good! At least, he is reading something instead of listening to pirated music on his cell phone.