Reading as Refuge: Sonali Bendre Behl’s Gentle Defence of Books

'To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.' - W. Somerset Maugham

The modern cultural moment presents an unsettling paradox. Human beings today consume more written material than at any previous point in history, yet the ability to read with patience, depth and continuity appears to be steadily weakening. We skim headlines, scan captions, scroll through fragments and mistake constant exposure to text for genuine reading. The result is a peculiar impoverishment: we are surrounded by words but increasingly distanced from the reflective silence that serious reading requires. In this climate of fractured attention, Sonali Bendre Behl's A Book of Books arrives as a timely and persuasive reminder that reading is not merely a hobby, nor a decorative accomplishment, but a discipline of inner life.

The book's appeal lies in its modest but important ambition. It does not pretend to be a scholarly history of literature or a theoretical meditation on reading. Instead, it positions itself as a companion for readers at different stages of their journey: the hesitant beginner, the parent trying to raise a child around books, the distracted adult who wants to return to reading, and the committed bibliophile looking for renewed affirmation. This range gives the volume its democratic character. Behl writes less like an instructor standing above the reader and more like an enthusiastic fellow traveller saying, with warmth and conviction, that books can still rescue us from hurry, loneliness and emotional fatigue.

For those who have followed the public advocacy of literature in India, A Book of Books also represents the formal consolidation of Behl's long engagement with reading communities. Her public identity may have begun in cinema, but over the years she has used that visibility to encourage conversations around books, parenting, self-cultivation and the everyday value of stories. The book draws from that experience and converts it into a readable manual on the "why, what and how" of reading. Its publisher describes it as a guide that explains why reading matters, what to read across age groups and interests, and how to become a reader for life. That summary is accurate, but it does not fully capture the emotional intelligence with which Behl frames reading as a practical refuge.

The Anatomy of the Reading Habit

The core of the book is organised around three fundamental questions: why should we read, what should we read, and how can we sustain the habit of reading in ordinary life? This structure gives the work a clear progression.

Behl begins by identifying the many incentives for maintaining a regular relationship with books. These reasons move from the obvious to the intimate: reading expands vocabulary, strengthens imagination, develops empathy, deepens concentration, offers companionship and helps readers make sense of their own emotional experiences. The argument is not new, but it is presented with sincerity and clarity. In an age where attention is treated as a commodity to be captured, Behl asks us to reclaim attention as a capacity to be cultivated.

From this conceptual foundation, the book moves naturally into recommendation pathways for different kinds of readers. Children, young adults and adults are addressed without the heavy-handed seriousness that often accompanies reading lists. Behl's selections cross genres and moods, suggesting that the right book is not always the most prestigious one, but the one that meets a reader at a particular point in life. This is one of the more humane aspects of the book. It refuses to reduce reading to a performance of taste. Instead, it treats books as companions that can console, challenge, entertain or enlarge us depending on what we need at a given moment.

The final movement of the book is especially useful because it addresses the domestic mechanics of reading. Behl recognises that love for books cannot survive on intention alone. It needs time, space and ritual. Her suggestions, creating reading corners, reducing screen interruptions, reading aloud to children, discussing books in families, and treating libraries and bookshops as meaningful spaces, may appear simple, but they are precisely the kind of small habits through which a reading culture is built. The strength of this section lies in its practicality. It understands that most people do not fail to read because they dislike books; they fail because reading has not been protected from the aggressive demands of modern life.

The Inclusivity Compromise

The primary strength of A Book of Books rests on its rejection of cultural gatekeeping. In many social circles, literary seriousness is still mistaken for difficulty, exclusivity or the ability to cite the "right" authors. Behl resists that narrowness. She places printed books, e-books and audiobooks within the same moral universe, insisting that the value of reading lies not in the purity of the format but in the encounter between a mind and a story. This inclusiveness is important because it widens the doorway. A commuter listening to an audiobook, a teenager reading fantasy, a parent revisiting picture books, and an adult returning to fiction after years of professional exhaustion are all treated as legitimate readers.

This is where the book becomes most convincing. Its tone is not punitive. It does not shame non-readers or romanticise a lost golden age of reading. Instead, it invites. The sentence, "Stories have the power to connect, heal, and inspire," captures the spirit of the volume. Behl's faith in books is emotional, but it is not sentimental in the weak sense. She understands that stories allow readers to rehearse other lives, inhabit unfamiliar perspectives and return to their own circumstances with greater patience. In a divided and anxious world, that ability to imagine another person's interiority is not a luxury; it is a civic and human necessity.

Yet the book's great accessibility is also the source of its limitation. Because Behl chooses a consistently gentle and elementary tone, the work sometimes avoids more difficult questions. It could have engaged more sharply with the unequal access to books in India, the decline of public libraries, the economics of publishing, the shrinking attention span produced by digital platforms, or the language hierarchies that shape what is considered "good" reading. The review of reading culture remains personal rather than structural. For some readers, this will feel like a missed opportunity. A book that speaks about making readers for life might have been even stronger had it examined the social conditions that make such a life easy for some and difficult for others.

Even so, this limitation does not seriously damage the book's purpose. A Book of Books is not designed as a policy document or an academic intervention. It is a reader's invitation, and within that chosen frame it succeeds. Its simplicity is strategic. By avoiding jargon, it reaches the very audience that most urgently needs encouragement: people who feel intimidated by books, people who believe reading is only for the intellectually privileged, and people who have allowed screens to displace silence. In that sense, the book's lightness is not a weakness alone; it is also the condition of its usefulness.

A Necessary Sanctuary

To judge the book solely by the standard of intellectual density would therefore be unfair. Its achievement lies elsewhere. At a time when continuous digital noise threatens our interior life, any work that persuades readers to pause, choose a book, and remain with it performs a necessary cultural service. Behl's volume reminds us that reading is not an escape from reality in the shallow sense; it is a way of returning to reality with a more ordered mind. It strengthens attention, enlarges sympathy and creates a private sanctuary that no algorithm can fully invade.

A Book of Books ultimately works because it understands that the crisis of reading is not only about books; it is about the kind of people we become when we stop reading deeply. Without sustained reading, our language shrinks, our patience thins, and our imaginative sympathy weakens. Behl's response is not alarmist but restorative. She asks us to begin again, with a story, a shelf, a child's bedtime ritual, a book club conversation, a few protected minutes in the day. That modesty is persuasive. The book does not promise transformation overnight; it argues for the slow, cumulative power of habit.

Warm, accessible and practical, A Book of Books deserves to be read not as a definitive treatise on literature but as a generous doorway into the reading life. It is especially valuable for parents, teachers, young readers, returning readers and anyone who needs to be reminded that books are not relics of a slower age but instruments for surviving the speed of the present. By stripping away elitism and presenting reading as a daily emotional anchor, Sonali Bendre Behl offers a convincing defence of the book as refuge, companion and quiet revolution.