Why 2015 won't disappoint book lovers

If 2014 was the year of autobiographies, 2015 promises to have a more eclectic line-up of story-tellers. There’ll be something for everyone on the bookstands.

I am inspired by Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook founder and CEO has vowed to read one book every other week this year. This is his Year of Books. For all those who wish to take a leaf out of his book, here are some authors and titles to look forward to this year.

Amitav Ghosh has already brought out his narrative masterpiece: Flood of Fire, the final volume of his opium trilogy. Amish, who made Shiva sexy, is out to do the same to Ram Chandra in his Scion of Ikshvaku. Vikram Seth has brought out his Summer Requiem, his book of verse after a gap of 25 years. But there’s much more on the anvil - if you want engaging companions on lazy weekends.

“If you like to read, we’ve got some news for you. The second-half of 2015 is straight-up, stunningly chock-full of amazing books,” announces The Millions online magazine that covers books, arts, and culture in its just-published the ‘Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview.’ On their list is A Bad Character by Deepti Kapoor, the first American edition being published this year. “Delhi is no place for a woman in the dark,” Kapoor writes, “unless she has a man and a car or a car and a gun.” A “coming-of-age story and a portrait of New Delhi,” writes The Millions. Something about it resonates… A must-read.

A very different book is The Devourers by Indra Das, which first appeared as a short story in science fiction and fantasy magazines like Clarkesworld and Asimov Science Fiction. It’s possibly the first Indian book to belong to the latest literary genre of werewolves and shapeshifters. The mythical creatures move about in time and space: Europe to Mughal India to contemporary Calcutta.

Then there is Indian Magic by Balraj Khanna, a novel which follows “an immigrant’s life in Swinging Sixties Britain”. Khanna had reached the shores of UK in 1962 to study literature at Oxford. But that was the time when India was at war with China and the documents he needed for admission never arrived. He became a journalist, a painter and an author instead.

I am fascinated by the storyline of The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James. It’s about man-animal confrontation in a Kerala wildlife park, told primarily through "Gravedigger", an orphaned elephant that went rogue from human violence, killed people and then covered up their bodies tenderly with leaves.

A much-anticipated book is Goa-based psychoanalyst and author Sudhir Kakar’s forthcoming novel The Devil Take Love. The longings and life of the 5th century Sanskrit poet Bhartṛhari, brought to life — as only Kakar knows how to — with a wealth of historical research.

The year won’t be complete without reading two more books by two master story-tellers. The news that Toni Morrison has written a novel “amounts to at least an 8 on the literary Richter scale,” says the Slate. The Guardian calls the God Help the Child “incredibly powerful.” So block your diary for days devoted to the 192-page precious volume.

There’s also the Festival of Insignificance by one of the greatest contemporary writers, Milan Kundera, hitting bookstands 13 years after the publication of his last novel Ignorance. It could be his “last, and it is magnificent, sunny, profound and funny,” says L’Express. The French version has already topped charts in Italy, Spain and France. And it just can’t be missed.

Meantime, all eyes are on September, when the literary Richter scale is likely to reach a full 10 on 10. That’s when Salman Rushdie’s Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is expected to hit the stands — seven years after his Enchantress of Florence. Yet another love story, imbued with his own brand of magical realism, in “an age of unreason,” we are told.

With such a line-up of epic entertainment, 2015 indeed promises to be a Year of Books. And not just for Zuckerberg.