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Books to Read this Election Season
Article / April 17, 2014

Everyone and his dog seem to be talking about the elections. This time we also have a soap-opera unfolding around the timely (or ill-timed, depending on which side of the political divide you’re on!) release of a book that allegedly supports all those ‘remote-control’ theories. Take a look at the books that are making waves this election season. The Accidental Prime Minister by Sanjaya Baru: No introduction necessary. The book alleges that Singh was not entirely in control of his cabinet, nor of the PMO. Instead, important decisions were taken by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi. “There cannot be two centres of power. That creates confusion. I have to accept that the party president is the centre of power. The government is answerable to the party”, Manmohan Singh is alleged to have told the author, who was his media advisor and says that he wrote the book to gather ‘empathy’ for the beleaguered PM. The timing of the book launch couldn’t have been more ooportune; it has become a talking point, a sensation, and has already sold out on Flipkart. Buy the book.     Centrestage: Inside the Narendra Modi model of Governance by Uday Mahurkar: Is the much-touted ‘Gujarat…

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E-books and E-book readers : what Indian readers want
Article / April 3, 2014

This report, compiled by IndiaBookStore, was first published at www.NextBigWhat.com . Most of us still like the good old printed book. The dead tree edition, some say. But things are changing quite fast. E-books are slowly picking up, with Amazon, Google, Apple and the likes of Flipkart trying to push e-books. But what will make a reader buy an e-book? Or even an e-reader? A recent survey by IndiaBookStore, a search engine that helps users find price and availability of books offers some answers. The survey of 325 online users asked what would tempt someone to buy an e-book? Or would they stick to the dead tree edition? And other such questions. The respondents were classified as Light readers (36%), serious readers (30%) and obsessive readers (20%) and the rest were very light readers. Here are the findings. What would tempt you to buy an e-reader? 46% of light readers and 44% of our serious readers are waiting for e-book prices to come down. The obsessive reader is the only one (excluding the academic and non-reader) for whom a change of lifestyle (43%) is more important to buy an e-book reader as compared to its price (38%). Which reading format…