Mayday!

A distress signal and a round-up

Ok, it’s past midnight as I start typing this, which means technically, it is not May day, but it’s still mayday. In a sense. Bear with me.

I write to you as a reader in distress. Last weekend, The Bookshop put up a post on Instagram that I would have liked a million times if I could. You should read the whole carousel, but here’s the part that feels particularly relevant:

“Book prices have risen every year since then [the pandemic], though we continued to reason with publishers and were in relative consensus about pricing structures. Until April 2025 when Penguin Random House India, part of one of the biggest publishing conglomerates in the world, and the biggest importer of international titles to India, decided to price books pretty much at par with their pound or dollar price.”

This means the average price of a paperback goes up to approximately Rs. 1,000 from Rs. 500-Rs. 600. To quote The Bookshop, that makes books “shockingly unaffordable”. Correcter words have ne’er been typed.

Look, if you’re one of those people who can afford all the books you want to read, I’m happy for you, but for most of us, books were scuttling towards feeling expensive even before this hike by Penguin Random House India. Paperbacks of international titles were coming to around Rs. 800-odd, which Amazon would invariably end up selling at Rs. 500-odd. Publishers will tell you that for their business ledgers to not look like a crime scene, books need to be more expensive, especially in India. Fair enough, but from a book buyer’s perspective, saving/ spending Rs. 300 on every purchase quickly starts adding up. Irrespective of how easily you can afford the books you buy, when books become expensive, most of us want to know if the title will feel ‘worth’ its price tag.

So what decides a book’s worth?

I’m asking this question as much as a reader (who will genuinely struggle to afford all the books she wants to read) as a writer. Because I’ve written a novel and if a publisher picks it up, I don’t want it to feel unaffordable. A hefty price tag becomes a burden on both the book and the reader, and serves neither very well. That said, I would also like to be paid as handsomely as possible for this book — not only because of the effort that went into writing it, but because I’d like to be able to afford other books written by other people. Writers are paid pittance and if we can’t afford our reading habit, our writing will be all the worse for it. Without reading, there is no worthwhile writing. Especially in the age of AI writing books in the time it takes you to click on “Subscribe now”, for the sake of the craft and art of writing, writers need to read. How on earth will we do that when a single book costs as much as a month’s electricity bill?

The other day, I opened up Instagram and Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico popped up on my timeline four times. In this day and age, that is a sign from the universe to buy the book haste post haste. I looked up the book on Amazon (since I don’t have a bookstore near me these days) and discovered it’s a 120-paged book that is priced at Rs. 1296. If you can afford that without gulping nervously, I’m happy for you, but the idea of spending that much on a single book leaves me feeling like a giant panda having a small nervous breakdown.

I ended up scoring a free copy of Perfection, which is good because I suspect if I had paid for it, I might have loved it a little less. It is a brilliant and exquisitely crafted novella, but the only situation in which I imagine myself reading it a second time is if I go mad and decide to reimagine Perfection the way Latronico decided he was going to reimagine George Perec’s Things: A Story of the Sixties (Rs. 699 in paperback). Latronico’s book reminds you to really open your eyes to the world around you and while that is priceless, the book has a concrete, pragmatic value. I suspect if it wasn’t more than Rs. 1000, I wouldn’t ask myself if I will ever re-read it.

In contrast, I’d like to believe that the book of mine that is currently gathering virtual dust in the inboxes of multiple publishers is one that could be read and re-read. It is nowhere close to being either as elegant or as insightful as Perfection, but it is breezy and full of joy. It’s entertaining and occasionally funny. Most importantly, it’s comforting. It’s a novel that will (I think) make you smile every time you pick it up. Provided you do pick it up and aren’t scandalised by what its protagonists end up doing. Provided you’re not deterred by the price of the book.

Which brings me back to that first question: What decides a book’s worth? Especially as someone who hopes to keep writing and convincing both publishers and readers to pick up her books, I wish I knew. As a reader, I know that I simply cannot afford all the books that I want to read, which means either I have to reach out to publishers for review copies or …

Incidentally, 2025 is the first time in ages that I’ve written to PR people, asking for review copies. Just thinking about those emails is making me crumple with guilt. You see, I used to have a policy. If a friend has written a book, or if the book I want to read is by an Indian author, or if it’s available in India, I’ll buy it. To my mind, free copies are meant for those in the business of reviewing. I, on the other hand, am in the business of reading and that means I should support those who write. So far, so groovy … except now paperbacks cost approximately Rs. 1,000 and I find myself sending out emails with the assurance that I will write about the book I’m asking for in my newsletter. By which I mean this thing that lands in your inbox with all the regularity of a wayward comet.

(Everyone, say a prayer that no PR ever looks up the frequency of this newsletter.)

(Also, as it turns out, I haven’t actually finished reading any of the books for which I went e-wheedling, so the entire exercise has been an epic fail.)

Before I go, here’s a quick list of books that I remember reading between January and April.

The City and its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami

Filed under: Books that are Not Worth the Rs. 1000+ Price Tag. Quite a few lovely, shimmery bits of prose, but this was mostly tiresome. Do not recommend. A friend suggested hearing it as an audiobook while stoned. I do not understand the wisdom of that suggestion. This book is expensive enough without adding the cost of hallucinogens to the mix. If you’ve got that much money to waste, buy a different book. Heck, you might even get three books for that amount.

Scaffolding by Lauren Elkin

Thoroughly enjoyed the way Elkin wove the physicality of Paris into the emotional terrain of her characters. On the surface, this is the story of an apartment and two couples whose marriages unravel in the process of them trying to make a home out of these walls and windows. There’s a lot more unravelling below the surface. It’s a little uneven, frequently very funny, and an intimate (but also very intellectual) portrait of feminine desire.

Hurda by Atharva Pandit

The starting point of this crime thriller is an extraordinary work of journalism. Back in 2013, Smita Nair wrote this incredible article (if you’re not an Indian Express subscriber, it’s behind a paywall) about a case in which three minor siblings first disappeared and then were found dead. The retelling in Hurda is riveting until well into the second half of the novel, when it shifts gears in order to become literary (or something clever like that). As debuts go, very very impressive.

Requiem in Raga Janki by Neelum Saran Gour

I don’t know how I missed this book when when it first came out in 2018, but I’m grateful to the gods of indie bookshops that I found it during my last book-bathing trip to Trilogy in Mumbai. This is an extraordinary historical novel about the singer Janki Bai. While the later chapters feel rushed, the characters are fantastic and the bits in which young Janki is being taught Hindustani classical music are worth their weight in gold.

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

My father gifted this to me for my new bookshelf and it is such a gentle delight of a book. This slim little volume is about a transforming neighbourhood and a couple whose lives are touched by wonder when they’re adopted by a cat. I loved how Hiraide infused the everyday with a sheen of wonder. There are fragments that end up lingering in memory like an old photograph. It’s a proper masterclass in the art of describing the ordinary.

Love, Queenie by Mayukh Sen

I wanted to love this book so much and even though it didn’t come to life as I’d hoped, I’m glad that it exists because perhaps someone will be inspired by the research to novelise Merle Oberon’s life. Hopefully, someone who reads Sen’s book will be inspired to write a novel like Delayed Rays of a Star with Oberon as its protagonist. A woman with as many secrets and adventures as Oberon deserves some epic storytelling. Sadly, this non-fiction account isn’t it.

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

A sharp spy thriller that becomes more and more tender as it unfolds under the aegis of Bruno Lacombe, an eccentric who has retreated from modern society to live in a cave. His only contact with the wider world is through the long-winded emails he sends to the cult-like group of eco-activists that see him as their guru. Kushner’s protagonist is a woman spy who embeds herself with Lacombe’s followers. She is a hundred times more charming and capable than James Bond. Good fun.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

Latronico started writing this novel as an exercise during the pandemic. He figured that since he couldn’t seem to manage anything creative, he’d rewrite Perec’s Things: A Story of the Sixties. Unlike Perec’s rather unforgiving portrait of a young couple, Latronico is more tender and understanding towards his protagonists as he puts together an incredibly intricate literary diorama of the millennial existence. As he said in an interview, he recognises aspects of himself in the lives that Perfection’s Anna and Tom lead, which is perhaps what makes the novel feel so lived and real despite the almost clinical neatness of Latronico’s prose. Muchly enjoyed.

With that, I’m going to sign off because if I don’t I’ll be maydaying my way through tomorrow. Someone give me a cookie for finally, for once, writing a short edition of this dashed newsletter.

Thank you for reading Dear Reader.