Three new Indian literary ventures: Pratilipi Books, ForbesLife magazine, and Tender Leaves library

Here are some things happening in Indian literature and the book business that I think you should know about -- perhaps you do already, and I was the last to find out:

The bilingual literary magazine Pratilipi has been, to my mind, for some years the best literary magazine in India, and it has recently ventured into book publishing with a set of nine varied books, including an anthology of Hindi poems in translation, a special on The Village (see the recent magazine lead story "Towards A Village-Less Future"), three books in Hindi, and three Swedish novels in translation, the cover of one of which I've put up here. I saw some of these titles at the Jaipur Literary Festival, and they're beautiful books. You can buy these books in select stores, or easier still, order them all online at Flipkart.

ForbesLife India is a new quarterly Indian magazine of stylish feature-writing (usually present in Indian journalism far more as intent than in reality) offering, in its inaugural issue, an excellent lead essay on how 21st century human beings could be "the first immortals", a lovely essay on home schooling by Manjula Padmanabhan, and some other very satisfying pieces, as also lovely design and layout.

And last, Tender Leaves ("It's more than just a library!") is a brand new online library service, offering a range of reading plans to subscribers, a growing library of titles, and free home delivery. The service is confined, in these early days, to readers in Pune, but it has plans to expand to other Indian cities soon. Should you wish to borrow a copy of my new book India: A Traveller's Literary Companion from the library, you'll find you'll receive a signed copy for Tender Leaves readers.