Books have always kept me company -- during flights, in waiting lounges and in the privacy of a clean toilet. I have never felt lonely in the company of a book. They have helped me visit new places, meet unknown people, and travel to bygone eras. Each book is unique, and each has something different to offer. Indeed, each book, each story, and each character has something to teach the reader.
Collecting books has been a lifelong habit. However, this has resulted in a serious space constraint at home. Still, bookshelves continue to expand at the cost of a shrinking wardrobe. Simply put, they are proud possessions and a new one is added to my personal library every week. I live in a typical middle-class home, one in which books are found in every room. The only rule is that books found in one room should not be shifted to another as space is in short supply everywhere.
But this is not a piece about books as home décor or even as an impediment to it. This is about how books have helped me throughout my life. When I regained my senses after being hit by a paralytic attack in 2024, the first thing I noticed was a book titled One Medicine by Dr Matt Morgan. Concluding that the most time we spend with animals is when they are on our plates, the author suggests that learning how animals survive and thrive be brought into our circle of concerns. At that point my cognitive ability was severely restricted. But I still managed to learn, via the book’s fascinating dive into the physiology of the animal kingdom, that the female kangaroo has three vaginas – two for having sex and one for giving birth.
2025 was a year of recovery for me. During its course, I met many relatives and friends though the numbers shrank as time progressed. Understandably, frequent visits were replaced by convenient phone calls and video chats, which worked as well.
Books, however, maintained their incoming regularity – a book once every week. Since I’m no fan of virtual volumes, I went ahead and kept buying, ending up with about 55 new books in more than 10 genres. They have all been comforting and a few have been transformative.
My own experience made me think of the devastating accident in Rome in 2022 that left noted writer Hanif Kureishi paralyzed but did not dent his creative zeal. In Shattered, he records his daily ordeal with rare insights from hospital beds in different hospitals, and questions: Why me? Rarely is that question met with a credible answer. Why would it not be you? Though we would like to be acknowledged for our exceptional qualities, it is our ordinariness that comes to the surface most of the time. And this is what leaves us wondering, ‘Who else but not me?’ Though we may be important to one another, according to Kafka, we are not much more than nothing in the universe.
The self, however exceptional, is as best an illusion. Didn’t the Buddha argue that our belief in the self is the root cause of our sufferings? Drawing from ancient Buddhist texts, authors of How to Lose Yourself, Jay L Garfield, Maria Heim and Robert H Sharf, show the reader how to dismantle the notion of the self. I found that it made me forget my own troubles. Yes, physical books smell great, are reliable and informative, and, if you are lucky, are always there when you need them.
And of course, they are always full of information, stuff you never realized you absolutely needed to know before you stumbled upon it in a book. Take the case of the Italian invention once considered an indulgence befitting only the elite that has evolved into one of the most popular mass-market food products ever. In Ice Cream: A Global History, journalist Laura B Weiss embarks on a fascinating journey through the ages to tell the lively story of how this delicious dessert became a global sensation.
Then, there’s The Co-Intelligence Revolution envisions a future in which human ingenuity and artificial intelligence work as powerful allies to co-create ground-breaking innovations and transformed institutions. The book cites the cases of beauty giant L’Oreal and Venkat Ramaswamy, among others, to provide insights on how artificial intelligence engages as both co-worker and coach in generating new processes and products.
I’ve realized that books on a variety of topics are now essential fodder for me to keep my cognitive faculties meaningfully engaged. I realize that I have been collecting and reading books and reviewing them too for a quarter of a century. Last year, I managed to review 26 books for a range of reputed publications. The neuro-surgeon’s yearly assessment revealed that my progress has been overtly satisfactory. According to the doctor, even in the medical exigency, a positive approach has worked.
Yes, books are essential; I’d say they have saved my life.
First published in the Hindustan Times on Feb 12, 2026.
