While Shobhaa Dé returns to fiction with Sethji, Advaita Kala (below) is ready with a sassy sequel to her hotselling chicklit, Almost Single

The diehard bookworm never stops searching for good tomes. And they’ll have plenty to sink their teeth into in 2009.

The publishing market has been on the upward incline and if earlier there was just Penguin or Rupa to contend with, today there’s a slew of publishing houses in the market. “That also means there are many more voices out there waiting to be published,’’ says V.K. Karthika, chief editor, HarperCollins.

And these voices will have their say on myriad subjects — lost roots and wasted ambitions, they will wax eloquent on legends, entrepreneurship and even on theories of comparative justice and much more besides.

Nevertheless, publishing houses are still being conservative with advances given the grim economic downturn that’s looming large. “Let’s say it’s a temporary phase. But literary works are flowing. We just have to nurture the talent, be patient and of course in the mean time count on luck,” says Nilanjana Roy, literary critic and chief editor, Westland Publishing.

Fictional accounts

The trends all point towards writing that is entertaining and which at the same time showcases how the world is changing outside the home. “An example of this is Mukul Deva’s Salim Must Die that is going to be a big release from HarperCollins in the coming year. Such fictional pieces are uncannily on target,” adds Karthika. Deva’s book begins with the death of Osama Bin Laden and tells a story of international terrorism aided and abetted by the ISI.

When it comes to fiction it’ll be more power to the pen of the big names in the game. You can look forward to award-winning author Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s second novel, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay (Penguin),that has been shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize. It is slated to be razor-sharp in its depiction of contemporary Mumbai urban society.

Another biggie will be Shobhaa Dé’s Sethji, a novel with which she returns to fiction after more than a decade. If you thought that Ashok Banker has been lying too low in the recent past, then you can watch out for his The Ganesha Palindrome as well as two more books from his successful Ramayana series — The Revenge of Ravana and Sons of Sita. And late in 2009, Upamanyu Chatterjee too resurfaces with an untitled novel from the Penguin stable.

The Tehelka man, Tarun Tejpal, will also set his second book on its way in 2009 with HarperCollins. In The Story of My Assassins, Tejpal will follow the travails of five men charged with conspiring to kill a down-and-out journalist.

Apart from Tejpal, HarperCollins’ repertoire for the year includes novels by Rana Dasgupta, Anita Nair and Advaita Kala (who is ready with the sassy sequel to her hotselling chicklit, Almost Single).

Random House India has titles like In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin — a collection of short stories about feudal Pakistan —and Cutting the Stone by Abraham Verghese that forays into the world of medicine. From Hachette, there is Daughters of Shame by the bestselling author of Shame, Jasvinder Sanghera.

Making a debut

If 2008 was the year of the debut novelist — with many first-timers making a splash —the trend will continue in 2009. Look out for investment banker Farahad Zama’s debut novel The Marriage Bureau for Rich People from the Hachette India stables. As the name suggests, the story revolves around a contemporary Indian marriage bureau launched by a Mr Ali to cater for a wide range of Indian clients.

The other first-time novelist to look out for is Pakistani novelist Ali Sethi. Penguin has high hopes for Sethi’s The Wish Maker that’s set against the turbulent background of modern Pakistan. At Rupa, it is Himani Dalmia with her new novel Life Is Perfect that happens to be a modern portrait of life in Delhi.

HarperCollins meanwhile is banking on journalists like Pinki Virani, who talks about the dilemma of the modern women in India in Deaf Heaven, and Chandrahas Chowdhury’s Aarzee the Dwarf which HarperCollins promises will be ‘refreshingly different’.

Real time stories

In the non-fiction segment, you can look forward to works from illustrious celebrities like APJ Abdul Kalam, Jaswant Singh and Amartya Sen

This is a different kind of non-fiction writing. A book that Random House India is sure will catch the readers’ imaginations is first-time author (and Kareena Kapoor’s nutritionist) Rujuta Diwekar’s Don’t Lose Your Mind, Lose the Weight. If you want Kapoor’s drop dead (or the much-debated size zero) figure this book might help you get there.

The non-fiction arena will have other exciting titles to watch for. Hachette India is holding its breath over Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler by Philipp Von Boeselager, which will hit bookstands globally to coincide with the release of the Tom Cruise-starrer Valkyrie. The author of the biography is the last surviving member of the July 20 Plot, a conspiracy among high-ranking Wehrmacht officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.

At Westland, the name to look out for is Agni Shridhar whose gangland memoir My Life as an Underworld Don falls back on the fact that the author was a part of the underworld in south India.

Penguin for its part has premier names such as N.R. Narayana Murthy, APJ Abdul Kalam and Amartya Sen enriching their book-lists. There’s more: India-1947 by Jaswant Singh from Rupa that attempts to take a look at who was really responsible for India’s partition — Jinnah, the Congress or the British. And last but not the least, there’s Sufi-sm: The Heart of Islam by Sadia Dehlvi from HarperCollins. It looks at Sufism in the Indian subcontinent and profiles the different Sufi saints.

All in all, a range of books that will be enough to keep you turning the pages.