The World of Books

The 17th World Book Fair, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Books are a man's (and woman's) best friends. Books not only enlighten and illuminate our lives but they also entertain, enrich, excite and take us where no one’s ever been before. They take us to worlds so different from our own, make us experience things which we would never experience in our lives and introduce us to people we would never meet. They are the essence of history and civilization and the harbinger of the future. They provide us an insight into great minds and the outlook to widen the horizons of our mind.

A passion for reading is a great gift. I am thankful to my parents for my first books....the amar chitra kathas they bought for me. And to the friend who took me to a public library for the first time. I still remember the time we would walk a long way to the library in the evening with the fervent hope to find some good books. It was a small library and you had to be lucky to lay your hands on the good books before somebody else did. Its amazing that even after all these years a good book still gives me the same satisfaction that it gave me when I was young.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.
~W. Somerset Maugham