Patna Manual of Style

Siddharth Chowdhury

Aleph Book Company

152 pages,Rs. 295

In these nine interlinked stories, we meet the not-so-quintessential Patna man Hriday Thakur, a literature junkie and aspiring writer familiar to readers of Chowdhury’s previous fiction.

Also featured are Jishnu-da, his acquaintance from Delhi University, who is now an “importer of blondes,” Samuel Crown, the fastidious proofreader who mentors Hriday and instils in him a deep love for the art of bookmaking, and the parade of women in Hriday’s life. These are stories about the often sensuous relationships of those in the world of publishing and academia.