'Book Reading Culture : Writers Who Read' by Nikhil Raghavan

Book readings are quite a phenomenon in Chennai. Bookstores like Landmark and Odyssey as well as cafes like Amethyst have become venues for the city's literati to converge and listen to either the authors themselves or other personalities reading excerpts from recently released books.

The Culture Cafe at the British Council organises a lot of these readings either to coincide with a new book release or the visit of an author. For instance, when The Constant Gardener was released in Sathyam Cinemas, the British Council organised a series of book reading sessions in the city colleges to promote the book and the movie. Earlier in March, a reading of Kanchana Sita and Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan's English translation of this play in Malayalam written by C.N.Sreekantan Nair was held at the British Council. Last November, the British Council and Madras Players presented an evening of modern Indian poetry with Vasantha Surya's poems, A World Between Us. November also saw a performance poetry by Dreadlockalien from the UK. In August, Alliance Francaise will host a book launch of How Wang Fo Was Saved by Brigette Revelli. The highlight of the evening will be the release of a Tamil translation of Marguerite Yourcenar's Nouvelles Orientales by V.Sriram. When famous authors like Robin Sharma, Valmik Thapar, Ruskin Bond and others visit the city, bookstores such as Odyssey and Landmark jump in to organise book reading sessions with the authors. For an invited audience and for the shoppers who are present in the store, this is a very unique experience - meet and hear their favourite author. Amethyst is a popular venue for play readings. The city's theatre groups are encouraged to use the venue to further their talent and art, courtesy its owner, Kiran Rao. The book reading habit, which a few years ago had dimmed thanks to FM, TV and Internet, is back again. Cash registers are constantly jingling at bookstores in the city, even for lesser-known authors, thanks to such sessions.

Courtesy: Chennai Beat, Supplement to The Week, Aug.20, 2006