BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Too Good To Be True: The National #1 Bestseller Now in an Exclusive Hardback Edition with a Bonus Chapter and Colour-Your-Own Cover! by Prajakta Koli 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Winner of the Amazon India Popular Choice Debut Book 2025 Award

Winner of Crossword Popular Choice Award for Fiction 2025

Winner of the Puri Literary Festival Book of the Year Award for Fiction 2025

Avani's favourite thing to do is bury her nose in romance novels-but, honestly, life can't be trusted to make the stories real, right?

In the bookstore where she works, a man walks in, straight out of the pages of her favourite love stories. Aman is hot, successful, seems to know what she's going to say before she's said it, and just cannot get enough of her. In short, he's perfect. Then why is Avani losing her mind, ignoring the advice of her BFFs and trying to convince herself that he's just too good to be true?

Will Aman ever be able to figure her out? And will Avani allow him to?

Wickedly witty, tender and utterly relatable at every turn, Too Good to Be True is the sparkling, true-blue, will-they-won't-they love story you've been waiting for!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prajakta Koli, also known as MostlySane, is one of India's most influential digital creators, actors and storytellers, with over 18 million followers across social media platforms. She rose to prominence through her relatable, sharp-witted content and has since built a multifaceted career across entertainment, literature and global advocacy.

As an actor, Prajakta is best known for her lead role in the hit series Mismatched, and has starred in Single Papa, both on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video's original series Andhera and the Bollywood film Jugjugg Jeeyo. In January 2026, she made her Marathi film debut in Krantijyoti Vidyalay Marathi Madhyam, marking a meaningful return to her linguistic and cultural roots.

In 2025, she was the only Indian on the TIME100 Creators list, which recognized her impact on culture and storytelling worldwide.

Beyond entertainment, Prajakta is a passionate advocate for social change and serves as UNDP's first Youth Climate Champion from India, representing young voices on

global platforms and advocating for climate action and sustainability. She has also featured in the Daytime Emmy-winning documentary YouTube Creators for Change on Girls' Education with Michelle Obama.

Too Good to Be True is Prajakta's debut novel, which became a national #1 bestseller on release. Its publication initiated a significant new chapter in her journey as an author and a storyteller.

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Fireside chat with Jahnavi Prasada on Nainital, heritage, and community

 

Brewing Knowledge Friday

Fireside chat on Nainital, heritage, and community

Key Takeaways

• Nainital as “living heritage” → personal memories + historical documentation; book born from 10–15 years of on-ground observation and archiving

• Preservation vs change → advocate preserving viable heritage; accept smart infrastructure change where necessary; ~80% buildings not preserved, ~40% gone

• Himalayan Echoes (Kumaon Literature & Arts) matured to a boutique, mountain-voices festival → 10th edition; ~25–26 authors; ~300 attendees cap; non-political, environment-forward

• Reading advocacy needs hand-holding and simplification → short formats, visuals, school programs (Reader Leader in 4 govt. schools), podcasts as complements, not replacements

Opening and Context

• Weekly Friday 5:30pm The English Book Depot conversation; guest: author-curator Janhavi Prasada (Nainital: Memory + History + Identity)

• Coordination; hybrid presence from Dehradun/Delhi; Sneha hosts as EBD intern

Early Memories and Sense of Place

• Daily dawn imagery → Sher Ka Danda ridge; Deopata peak; Gayatri Mantra; birds on a walnut tree

• Childhood texture → free-range hills life: tree climbing, wild berries, nettle stings; continuity into adulthood (seasonal light, monsoon rainbows)

Realising Heritage (Later, not as a child)

• Awareness matured in teens; initially took setting for granted (long school days, Doordarshan/VCR era)

• Family home, Abbotsford (purchased 1906) → Tagore family link via grandmother; ship consignment of artefacts (life-size marble Roman busts; chandeliers)

• Early casualness (artefacts outdoors) → later conservation mindset; brought artefacts inside; learned why “no dirty shoes/no running” rules existed.

Journey to Documentation and Writing

• Media path → Cardiff (broadcast journalism); Pioneer; ANI/Reuters; DD; Channel News Asia

• Return to Nainital to steward Abbotsford; aim: experiences with meaning, not generic hospitality.

• Graphic novel adaptation of Gandhi’s autobiography (HarperCollins) → visual/brief-sentence style foundation

• Nainital book emerged after a decade+ of photos, interviews, and noticing transitions (buildings decaying, people ageing/absent post-COVID)

Style and Format Choices

• Intentional brevity → TV-influenced short lines; accessible non-fiction

• Rationale → today’s low attention spans; visuals aid retention; preference for graphic/concise formats to keep radical ideas readable

Heritage: Preserve vs Evolve

• Position: preserve when possible; share to sustain (Abbotsford as boutique stay; book as scalable “guide”)

• Acknowledges financial strain; calls on educated/able owners to conserve and open to the public

• Infrastructure pressure example → single entry/exit roads; lower road lost sections to the lake; locals resist change but embrace good design-led solutions

Himalayan Echoes: Kumaon Festival of Literature & Arts

• Origin → built Nainital Book Club first (30–40 regulars), then launched the festival

• Scale shift → from 5 authors/50 attendees (at Abbotsford) to ~25–26 authors/~300 attendees over 2.5 days; boutique by design to protect quality

• Focus → mountain/trans-Himalayan voices; environment, climate, sustainability; non-political stance despite political lineage

• Notables → Lobsang Sangay is a Tibetan-American politician in exile who was Kalon Tripa of the Tibetan Administration in India  (CTA, PM-in-exile). Patrick French, Manisha Koirala, Shobhaa De; mentor: Namita Gokhale; speakers from Ireland/Sweden

• Identity after 10 years → serious, culturally grounded, environment-forward think space

Community Reading Programs

• Reader Leader Project → 4 govt. junior schools; mini-libraries; weekly volunteer-led sessions with props to normalise reading

• Target equity → prioritise govt. schools for author access; post-festival school programs; expansion to village schools

• Sneha/Sandeep align on making reading “flavourful” via mixed media (on-screen texts + conversations)

Food, Bakeries, and Local Flavour

• Personal house favourites served at Abbotsford Cafe → Irish stew (weekly), UP kebabs, mulligatawny soup, jelly custard, caramel custard, apple crumb.

• Heritage bakeries → Bakery No. 6 (~1921) fresh macarons noted; “Lotte Wala Jalebi” as an enduring local institution

• Travel ethos → savour local farmer ’s-market-style foods; concern: domestic tourists often default to 5-star staples over local cuisine.

Walks, Fauna, and Safety

• “Walk in Heaven” chapter → post-festival ritual 1-hr forest walk; cemetery walk (WW veterans, POWs, carved epitaphs), mist, woodpeckers, treepies, barking deer.

• Leopards (bagh/tendua) are omnipresent in hill life → safety practice: avoid solo walks after 6pm; if alone, keep talking to deter approach (keen hearing)

• Personal loss → first pet Pomeranian, taken by leopard; underscores coexistence realities in hill towns

Reading: How to Start

• You can’t force reading; reduce intimidation with hand-holding and simple, short visual content.

• Make reading casual, everyday; use podcasts as complements, not substitutes; NGOs and community hubs are essential for scaffolding.

AI-generated content by FATHOM AI.

Notes on Reading

I have always noticed how people hold books. I started observing this unconsciously. I’ve seen people fold the corner of a page without a second thought. The gesture is instinctive, almost absent-minded. They do it mid-sentence, mid-feeling. The crease becomes a private marker of urgency: I will come back to this. There is something unapologetic about it. The book is not being worshipped; it is being used.

I’ve also seen the opposite. The careful insertion of a bookmark. The smoothing of a page before closing it. The quiet refusal to let the spine bend too far. These readers handle books as though they are preserving evidence. Their movements are controlled and precise. The object remains intact, symmetrical, composed.

And then some write in the margins. Not aggressively, but thoughtfully. Underlines in pencil. A question mark beside a claim. A date written softly at the top of a page. I once borrowed a book filled with annotations and found it strangely intimate—like overhearing someone think. In contrast, I know readers who would never allow ink to touch paper. For them, a book arrives complete; it is not a surface for dialogue but a structure to be respected and exited without alteration.

Watching all of this, I began to realise that these are not trivial habits. They reveal something about how we approach ideas—and perhaps how we approach everything else.

None of this feels accidental to me anymore.

I have caught myself changing over time. I used to dog-ear pages constantly. It felt efficient, almost instinctive. But now it makes me uncomfortable. I annotate instead—light pencil underlines, small notes—and I always use a bookmark. I’m not entirely sure when the shift happened. Perhaps I became more attentive to preservation. Perhaps I simply became more conscious of how I wanted to interact with what I read.

That is why I find this subject quietly compelling. A book, after all, survives both kinds of handeling and i don’t think there is a correct way to handle a book. But I do think the way we do it says something precise about us. And once you begin noticing, it is impossible to stop.

Sneha

-The English Book Depot