Reading is an activity that has been carefully examined over the years. Do enough people read? Is book selling a business at all, really, leave alone being profitable? People love the smell of books but then there are those who often tell me, like it were a badge of honour: “I don’t read”; “I don’t have the time to read”.

Well then, who is your average reader? And what kind of books would he or she read? Men have confided in me for years, ever since 2002, when I got into the business of books and bookselling: “I don’t read women writers.” I would wonder why. Do they repose more faith in men because they spend more time in the outside world, grappling with “significant” issues? Or do they simply think, misinformedly, that their gender is more intelligent than the female, and therefore the only one worth reading?

Male writers have hence, (barring Ms Enid Blyton, the Bronte sisters and Dame Agatha Christie, most of whose readers are children and women), ruled the roost for years, nay, centuries. When Rowling broke the spell, she wrote as simply J.K. Rowling, not wanting to give away her gender. Later when she decided to write books that had nothing to do with Harry Potter, she used an outright masculine nom de plume, Robert Galbraith. Frankly, this speaks volumes about us as a society than about her.

Fast forward to 2024, and now, it’s a cascading waterfall. More and more women are reading, more often than not, women writers, and I watch with jaw-dropping awe women forming and joining book clubs in every residential society in Gurgaon, where I live and ply my craft.

We have a large number of members in our book club who are happy to read and discuss the latest worldwide literary phenomenon, an old classic, some non-fiction, science fiction or a thriller. Their engagement is endearing. But most of them are working professional women. A few brave men do join but seem to be mostly unavailable.

If we look around a bit more, the change is obvious. We have two women — Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon — suggesting to the rest of the world what they should read. Reese Witherspoon has made a roaring business of it by having a team read books and buying the rights to turn them into films.

A man, the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, publishes his list, followed avidly by both sexes, you may say. Agree. Amongst these three people, two are Blacks, and one is both Black and female. If nothing else, the stereotype has been turned on its head.