Your list of bestsellers just reinforces my point…

* அம்பானி – ஒரு வெற்றிக் கதை – a biography of Dhirubhai Ambani
* அள்ள அள்ளப் பணம் – a simple introduction to the how the stock market works
* டாலர் தேசம் – a political history of America
* 9/11 சூழ்ச்சி – வீழ்ச்சி – மீட்சி – a book on the 9/11 attack, who was behind it and how it was planned and executed
* பாக். – ஒரு புதிரின் சரிதம் – a political history of Pakistan
* இஸ்லாம் – ஓர் எளிய அறிமுகம் – a simple introduction to Islam in an FAQ format
* ரமண சரிதம் – a biography of Ramana Maharishi

Like Tilo says, “reading to get ahead in life” books.

Maybe I was just looking at a man who knows that people really don’t read anymore – except what they need to read – to ‘get ahead’ in life!

From when we got started in February 2004, we’ve published over 70 titles so far under our கிழக்கு பதிப்பகம் imprint, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised to find about 10 of them turning into best selling titles (over 2000 copies sold and counting) and many of the others selling well.

I have come across a few publishers and authors who were reasonably happy with the turnout and sales at the recent fairs. but lot of the sales might be coming from technology related books and self-help books. even manimekalai prasuram (which u mentioned earlier) has shifted to cookery, self-help…maybe reflecting the current trend in publishing.

The future holds some hope for us.

We need an Illayaraja who’ll write so well, that he’ll make reading Tamil cool again!

Also there is the other issue. I know many friends(Chennai-tes especially) who are Tamilians but are Tamil illiterates – they are fluent in English but would need a couple of minutes to figure out the destination written on a Pallavan bus.(Of course in college crowds its also not uncommon to see a few “mara thamizhans”)
With the IT/call center culture well prevalent, just no incentives to reading Tamil books anymore I guess. Some of them figure that reading English novels would atleast aid them in their GRE or TOEFL tests.How many Tamnilians from IITs or other reputed Engineering colleges have you seen who claim to have a serious interest in Tamil literature? I have seen about 2 or 3 out of several hundred

If the elite educated audience prefer reading English stuff the novel writers would only want bored housewives of working class people to be their target audience and that in turn reflects in the quality of their novels.

TN and Kerala have the highest newspaper and magazine readership in India – my question (concern) is why are book sales not commensurate with this. Not counting the people who have the resources/inclination to go to Landmark and buy Rushdie and Seth, I am surprised that people who enjoy reading (from magazine sales numbers) don’t want to go one step further and read books. Is it the lack of good books?

And it seems to be getting worse. There is a lot of noise being made about TV killing movies, but it is killing books even more. Every publishing house in T.Nagar is struggling – Manimegalai, which used to publish the (enjoyable, if a bit cliched) Tamilvanan books is now reduced to recyling their old books or publishing self-help books. Most publishers run after Sujatha and a few other writers as soon as they start writing something for a magazine. Plus, Sujatha and Jayakanthan (I hate to group these guys together) aren’t exactly young: where are the new guys? Walk into Landmark’s regional books section, or Higginbothams and you’ll see what I mean – it is the same Ponniyin Selvan and Kadal Pura, a few books from Balakumaran, Sujatha, Lakshmi and Vaasanthi. Year after year after year, these shelves never seem to change.

I don’t know if it is cultural, but it is something that baffles me.

Manoj: You can laugh all you want, but make sure you stay away from people when they go to check results. Unless you don’t like them.

Tilo: Let me guess, Hindu was diamonds? Yeah, we tried a magazine exchange thing for a few weeks, but it was too hard to sustain.

Plus we had an exchange going for the Sunday magazine 0f Hindu & IE.

The “code” smuggler-style was ‘Give me the gold and take the diamonds!’

listened as I angrily explained that it was NOT my fault

I’m sure you also told them who really was at fault. Maybe you should write about that one day. I’m sure people will side with your theory.

As for the post, I can totally relate to it. My Dad quotes Vallathol(a Mallu poet) every chance he gets. So I asked if he owned any of his works and my Dad looked at me as if I were crazy (the same look I get when I tell him that Ilaiyaraja is God).

Nice anecdotes, good point but don’t think I agree completely. I do think that the two regional languages that I can speak for Tamil and Malayalam both have a strong literary scene comparable to Bengali or Marathi. In Malayalam, writers like MT Vasudevan Nair and O. Vijayan are extremely talented and widely successful. In Tamil, Sujatha, Jayakanthan are all quite successful, aren’t they? I am sure if I talk to my Dad, he will give me a long list of modern Tamil writers!

Also don’t think that we, as a culture don’t buy books. My parents even bought me pulp like Nancy Drew et al! Though come to think of it, most of the books I read, I just got them from the nearby library.

Veena