Homemakers like the escapism of romantic fiction,” she said. “Writers like Indumati, Sivasankari and Anuradha Ramanan are not preferred these days because most of their stories have tragic endings. Her members, mostly women, seem to prefer authors like Muthulakshmi Raghavan and Ramanichandran. “There’s a big rush for novels when homemakers with children in senior school are unable to watch TV during their exam time and also from people who are here for holidays.” “I keep reinvesting the money from the library in getting new stock,” said Ms. Today, her collection of books (mostly in Tamil, though there are a few shelves of English volumes too), has gone up to 800. Members pay a yearly subscription and a weekly rental for the books they borrow. Latha set up her reading circle with 100 books. 5000 from her husband, a Railway employee, Ms. With some business tips from the Tiruchi library, and an initial investment of Rs.

When we built our home in Kattur, I felt confident enough to start a small library within our neighbourhood,” recalled Ms. “I used to borrow books regularly from a library in the Junction area, because we didn’t know many people then. Latha came to Tiruchi after her marriage in 1990. Latha said.Ī great lover of books and reading herself, Ms. “She says that reading helps her spend her time constructively while the animals get their fill,” Ms. One of her most regular members, she added, is a cowherd, who always borrows four to five novels before she takes her cattle out to graze every other day. The Hindu in an interview at Ahil Lending Library, the little gathering place for bookworms that she has been running out of her home in Vignesh Nagar, Kattur since 2004.

“You can never really guess who would be a book lover,” Ms. If there’s one lesson that Latha Ilango has learned in her 12 years as a librarian, it is that one must never judge a book by its cover or a reader by his or her outward appearance.

Muthulakshmi raghavan stories