Celebrities, while living whirlwind lives in the spotlight, often find a haven in the simple pleasure of reading. India’s biggest stars are no exception, and their reading habits offer a captivating glimpse into their minds and passions. Some even have gigantic bookshelves to flaunt, making every bookworm go gaga over their collection and library aesthetics! From the Khans, Bachchans
to the young charms of Bollywood like Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ananya Pandey, reading is their ‘me-time’. Simply put, an escape to a fictional or non-fictional world as per their choice of momentary read.
Reading For Fun
Lately, Gen-Z glam girl Ananya Pandey is seen to be spending a lot of time with her best friend whenever she’s
travelling — a book! She has her phases of switching between fiction and non-fiction, amidst various genres. From Sally Rooney’s books, Shiva Trilogy to reading autobiographies, Ananya is papped a lot of times at the airport with a new book in her hand. The latest title in her reading list is The Fast and the Dead by Anuja Chauhan. Ananya has also revealed in an interview, “Navya Naveli Nanda gives really good book recommendations” and we all root for such nerd friends!
When it comes to reading for fun, superstar Kajol is a voracious reader, especially mythology. She recently recommended Shiva Trilogy for new readers who are just stepping into the world of book reading. She is a fan of Amar Chitra Katha and Ramayan series. Looks like it runs in the family. Not many know that her mother Tanuja is an avid reader of Marathi, Bengali, English and French literature.
Literature And More
When it comes to literature, who better to reach out to than the talented artists of Bollywood — Pankaj Tripathi, Manoj Bajpayee and Naseeruddin Shah. The common string amongst these actors is their education in theatre which taught the values of life and importance of reading. Manoj Bajpayee and Pankaj Tripathi are avid readers of Hindi literature whereas Naseeruddin Shah is fond of not just English and Urdu classics but even new-age writers. From a selection of vast genres, some have a collection of books that are for readers who love exploring the glimpses of reality in the depth of words. Sobhita Dhulipala has some incredible findings and her reading list is a must to check. Book of Longing by legendary Canadian novelist-songwriter-singer Leonard Cohen, 1984 by George Orwell, Love is a dog from hell by Charles Bukowski, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, Today’s Pasts: A Memoir by Bhisham Sahni.
Book Club Buddies
Actor-turned-writer-columnist Twinkle Khanna (aka Mrs Funny Bones) is not just an author. She has a fabulous book club called Tweak India Book Club. The February pick of the club is The Covenant of Water by bestselling Indian-origin US author Dr Abraham Verghese. Twinkle is a voracious reader and is renowned for her wit and humour, ingrained in her soul like a pen and diary to an author's life.
Sonali Bendre is another bibliophile who runs Sonali’s Book Club, a dedicated community of book lovers. Her February pick is The Fury by Alex Michaelides, a dedicated book for the month of love with a twist of murder mystery.
Unbreakable Book Bonds
Legendary superstar Amitabh Bachchan is known to be a keen and avid reader of English and Hindi literature. In a blog post, Bachchan expressed his preference for physical copies of books over ebooks, stating: “If music is the soul of our being, books are the educators of our soul.” From reading his father, Harivanshrai Bachchan’s works to appreciating the new age writers, Big-B defines that there is no age for learning.
The Khans are no less. Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan’s home library is a dream library for every book nerd. The King of Bollywood never fails to flex his wit and knowledge whenever and wherever he can. His all-time favourites are Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps by Allan Pease and Barbara Pease, and David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Khan likes books of all genres and even likes comic books as well.
Patriarch of the royal Pataudi clan, Saif Ali Khan is known to invest most of his time reading, gauging knowledge and wisdom. He can speak a dozen languages and is fluent in English, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, French, German, Italian and Sanskrit to name a few.
Saif has often expressed his joy for reading and the first book that shaped his identity was Alfred Hitchcock’s The Three Investigators. Since then, there is no going back. After all, books are your best companions in good and bad times!
