In 1980, India was the seventh largest producer of books in the world

What people read is always a matter of curiosity for others-especially those whose intake of the printed word is restricted to newspapers and magazines. Yet, the pleasure of reading is pursued pretty avidly: According to a recent hand-book on Indian publishing, some 13,000 titles were published in the country in 1980; India was the seventh largest producer of books in the world, and ranked third in the production of English titles, after USA and UK.

Significantly also, a remarkable variety of books on and about India were published abroad this year: it was the year of authors Gita Mehta and Dom Monies produced best-sellers (Karma Cola and Bombay I; picture-books on India, from royal nostalgia to Raj scrap-hooks, proliferated: and even Prime Minister Indira Gandhi penned the text to a coffee-table glossy called Eternal India. India Today, which kept abreast of happenings in the book world, from the controversy generated by a new biography of Lord Mountbatten to new biographies of Mrs Gandhi, turned the tables on a variety of personalities - many of them writers - to list books that gave them pain or pleasure, new- books they tried to catch up with or old books they, returned to. Following is the their selection :

M. V. Kamath, Editor
The Illustrated Weekly

I would like to give a list of the books I have enjoyed reading this past year. Among the coffee-table books I would recommendRajasthan, Addition Del RoisseandPalaces of India. As for non-fiction. I think the best wereAn AnthologyandJawaharlal Nehru's Biographyboth by Sarvapalli Gopal.My Own Boswellby Hidayatullah andReturn to Punjabby Prakash Tandon. However. I think the best book I read was a fictional workIslands in the Sunby Vatsyayana. It is a translation from Hindi and is a study of human relations which is exceedingly interesting. It is a departure from traditional fiction writing but very interestingly done.

Romesh Thapar, Political Commentator What do I read after keeping in touch with all the berserk happenings at home and elsewhere? To tell you the truth, I can't even recall the titles. Yes. it's called pulp literature, all about mafias of various description, dope peddling, political fixing, girl-snatching, eliminating the good with evil, but with happy, hopeful endings. Why do I read the stuff? Relaxation? Partly. But I suppose in some part of my unconscious self. I 'm trying to understand what makes the rulers of today tick-yes, our brainless simpletons, or the gangsters behind them, or the surrounding lobbyists looking for lucrative deals. Maybe. I'm even trying to find in other peoples those qualities which in India make for bride-burning, for group rape, for police Windings. But this pulp literature ??? is very repetitive. Perhaps, I'll tire one of these days and go back to comics - in colour only. a la Sathe.

Kamala Das,Poet
The Book of the Dead,English translation of 'Bardel Thodol' conceived by the Tibetan Lamas thousands of years ago. reached me only this year. It is a road map for the dying and the dead, charting out the lone journey the soul must undertake, removing the terrors and the confusion so that death becomes the greatest human adventure. This has helped me to see beauty on the now unshrouded face of death and has equipped me spiritually to face my final day on earth.

Cho Ramaswamy,Satirist,
Playwright and Editor

Humorous books are becoming rarer and rarer. That is why I was as much thrilled as amused while reading the great farcical workMy Truth by Indira Gandhi. You just cannot resist laughter, while reading the book. When a cat decides to impress on the world at large that it is greater in stature than an elephant, you have the ground prepared for limitless fun and frolic. If by your good luck, the cat goes about its ambition by trying to deflate all elephants, then you belter hold your sides.

And this is what Mrs Indira Gandhi does page after page in her illustrated comic. Shastri, Nehru, Kamaraj, Krishna Menon, and all those who mattered in the Indian political scene are portrayed as weak or mean or naive. The whole treatment of political events is so different from everything you have read on the subject, including history, that you cannot miss breathing fresh air.

Not just plain truth, which would have been mundane. It is 'My Truth', a ludicrously different brand. The imagination of the author while narrating events, her penchant for the ridiculous while reporting political developments and above all her scant respect for one and all, make a reading of this book the most amusing experience one could have. The photographs, unfortunately, are sober, and spoil the comic atmosphere so assiduously created by the narrative. In spite of this drawback, the book is a great entertainer by any standard.

Shabana Azmi,Film star

The most significant book I read last year wasWerner Erhardt-The Transformation of a Manby W. W. Bartley. I had done the Est course a year ago. but never got a chance to meet Werner, though there are a number of stories in circulation about him, saying that he's an imposter, and other derogatory things. But the book was really an amazing biography, it was very human, very true. Werner seems like a person willing to take the responsibility for his movement. He has not been glorified or deified, he's just a human being and it's an extremely moving book.

Chidananda Dasgupta,Film-maker and Critic

I have just read Yukio Mishima's tetralogyThe Sea Of Fertility. I cannot think of any other work that has made a greater impression on me in recent years. The first volume is pure poetry; the nobility of the two main characters, the delicate sensuousness of the description of people and places and states of mind create a vivid portrait of. as it were, the soul of Japan. The other three volumes trace what Mishima sees as the slow decline of the Japanese spirit at a time when the country seems so successful. The ideal of nobility in failure which Mishima sets up (and sought to emulate in his suicide just after finishing his magnum opus), nevertheless provides a key to the success of Japan.

Far removed from this, but deeply stirring nonetheless, are the recent novels and short stories in Bengali by Maha-shweta Devi. Few writers have ever written about tribal life with such depth of knowledge and such savage irony as she has in the novelAgnigarbhaand some of the short stories inNoiritay Megh. Her sense of outrage at the ruthless exploitation of tribals is never simplistic; it is cold, and has a sharp cutting edge that goes deep into the flesh before it starts turning.

Khushwant Singh,Editor, Hindustan Times

I cannot think of any book I read in the last 12 months which I could describe as memorable. To keep up with the Joneses of the reading world, I read whatever is being talked about most. But for the sheer joy of reading. I return to the classics: Shakespeare, Goethe. Thomas Mann, Iqbal, Gide, T. S. Eliot. Of the contemporary publications I try not to miss out on anything written on an Indian theme or by an Indian published abroad. (I have never taken an Indian author published in India very seriously).

By a little stretch of the imagination I include the Nai-paul brothers, Dom Monies and Ruth Jhabvala as Indian authors. None of them came up with anything really new or exciting. But V. S. Naipaul is always readable and thought-provoking. Like Graham Greene and Norman Mailer, he picks up themes of current interest and weaves his stories around them. I find him far more exciting than any of his contemporaries. So after reading hisBend in the Riverdealing with the problems of Indian settlers in Africa, I read hisReturn of Eva Peron- an anthology of articles published earlier. I brushed up on my Latin America and Trinidad and the Blacks in England. All beautifully written, informative and enough to chew on for months to come. For the last seven years. Naipaul has been my bet for the Nobel Prize for literature. Having read him again in 1980, I am willing to take on any odds that he will get it in 1981. Any takers'?

Nayantara Sahgal,
Novelistand Writer