Penguin Books India is Twenty-Five

Book Watcher Part I

The first Penguin I purchased was a little late in the day. I distinctly remember the tiny orange oval with a penguin inset inside it, winking at me from the corner of a P.G Wodehouse – The Gold Bat and Other School Stories. But it was the spine, the delightfully orange spine, that had me completely floored, it went for my jugular straightaway, and did not rest till I had put down cash at the purchase counter. That is how it is with some books – they sell themselves. In this case it was the spine that did it. I do not know whose idea it was at Penguin to have these orange spines, but it is a damn good idea I say.  

I stare unceasingly and unashamedly at book displays anywhere and everywhere – bookshops, libraries, and book fairs, and I can say with some confidence (and diffidence), that I am an adept biblio-voyeur. I can size up a book fairly early in the game, a few seconds into the eye-lock with the spine. Size, quality and the font used on the spine, graphics, publisher logo, hardback or paperback are all instant giveaways. I can tell the genre fairly easily, even if the author is unidentified or unknown. And I can tell right away, if I have fallen in love or not. And I haven’t even seen the cover yet. This is no slow dance, it’s a quickie. And once I have fallen in love, the desire to possess is just horridly insane.

When I see a display of books, I immediately slot them into broad categories. There is a very large category of books which I call ‘The Uglies’ (all Penguins are excused from this category, some Puffins are not). An Ugly, as the name so transparently invokes, sits in a category of rather poorly designed books. Sometimes Uglies are high on content, and great in production values, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why the Publisher would not spend a little more time (and brains) on making a good looking book. After all, the book did not lack in brains, in fact many Uglies are the epitome of grey-cell pulverizing material. Or perhaps that is the point of it. Just like in the human world – Einsteins and Freuds are often not Greek Gods or divas themselves, no offense intended.

It is not very easy to fall in love with an Ugly. It is a long drawn out affair, where brains may slowly, albeit awkwardly, entangle and thus triumph over need for superficial beauty. A book should not be judged by its cover, as they say. I disagree however, whenever I like.    

There is of course the other category called the Beauties. Badly written, with nothing much to say (or show), these are the book-world equivalents of the platinum blonde - lovingly produced vacuities, political correctness be damned. It is rather easy to spot a Beauty. It stands out like a cheap thriller paperback does in an antique book shop.

More, in Book Watcher Part II.         

Ankon Mitra is a landscape architect on weekdays and an origamist on weekends. He likes the geometry of everyday things; the voice of Bombay Jayashree; the Études of Chopin, and the hills in the monsoons. And, The Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl is his most cherished Penguin till date. 

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