POST NEWS NETWORK
Bhubaneswar: American novelist George RR Martin once said, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, but the one who never reads lives only one.” Books are treasure houses of knowledge. Bhubaneswar is a hub of young people who come for higher studies or to take up jobs. However, one thing the city still holds dear is literature. If one asks any young, educated lad what he likes to read he will instantly answer Dan Brown or JRR Tolkien or Pratibha Ray or Manoj Das or Anita Desai. Orissa tried to find out what books the city’s youngsters are reading these days and why. “Reading is an escape for me and whenever I have time I try to read the literary works of writers from around the world. As a banking professional my day is stressful, and to relax I am right now reading The Golden Houseby Salman Rushdie. Though the subject is vast I like the identity crisis caused by race in the US and the reinvention of life there,” says Nirjana Nayak, 26, an employee of Punjab National Bank. “It feels nice to see many young readers at my store looking through books. That proves the young are not fully obsessed with the Internet or smart phones, they are equally interested in literature,” says Jagdish Behera, owner of Oxford Book Store, at Pal Heights, Nayapalli. Reading is a stress buster for Nirjana, but it is a hobby for Amar Kumar Das, an English lit
erature student of BJB College, Bhubaneswar. “I simply can’t stay away from books. As a literature student it’s an advantage that I can read books. However, that apart I like reading the Harry Potter series, and now I am reading the latest in the series, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child by JK Rowling,” says Amar.
“In these days of mobile phones and laptops very few people come to bookstores.
However, there are many bookworms. In my store two books are selling well among youth. They are The Legend of Laxmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna, and I do what I do by Raghuram G. Rajan,” says Prakash Behera, owner of Prakash Book Store, at Jaidev Bihar. “I like fantasy novels and having finished the Harry Potter series now I am into Max Gladstone’s Ruin of Angels. Set in an alternate world it has all the elements of fantasy as well as science fiction, says Manoranjan Swain, an MBA student at IMIS, Bhubaneswar.
