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Tara Books

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Tara Books

Tara Books publishes for children, young people and for the adult reader. http://tarabooks.com We are based at Book Building in South Chennai.
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Our titles are widely known; have been published in over a dozen languages, including Tamil, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese and Dutch. Indian publishing collective: pushing the boundaries of the physical book in an age writing its obituary. Book Building houses our publishing offices, as well as a bookshop, gallery space and children's reading corner.

15/11/2024

Gifting Season!
November 15 - December 31

The year has come around, and it’s time for our annual sale. Gift yourself and others from our collection of books, prints and stationery.

We have new prints and cards, and as we get into the sale period, we will have more old favourites back in print!

Cat lovers, keep a lookout! And book art folks too!

Art featured: Tushar Vayeda, Mayur Vayeda, Aditi Jain, Ruchi Shah, Verena Gerlach and Henning Wagenbreth

12/11/2024

Book Stories

The Nine Emotions of Indian Cinema Hoardings

This book came out of a casual conversation about the film hoarding – it seemed to us that these hoardings that dotted our cities provided a dramatic backdrop to our everyday life. Comprising gigantic images, they conveyed a range of emotions, from the romantic to the piteous, and the heroic to the fearful – in short, the classic 9 emotions that are held to be the staple of all art. Sadly, though, these handpainted images were being fast replaced by digital ones.

Wanting to capture the visual grammar of this vanishing art, we worked with film hoarding artist M P Dhakshna to both recreate classic images, as well as to detail the making of this art. The project took two years to complete – and was not without its tragedies. An initial set of images got washed out in the rain! And had to be recreated…

Here is a short film clip on the hoardings, and some delectable ones from the book.

Head to our bio to access the link for the entire film and to the book.

08/11/2024

Sneak-peek!

Here is a preview of our latest set of silkscreened art prints -

One lot is from Travelling Patterns, a book that pays tribute to the art of pattern-making. The other is from Seed, a book that unfolds in four different forms, each of which captures a moment in the life of a seed.

These beautifully produced prints are testimony to the attention that our printers bring to their work. The size of the screen, the care with which the colours are layered on to the handmade paper, and the tireless labour that goes into their making ... after working with our bookcraft team for well over 30 years, we continue to marvel at what they turn out.

Watch this space for more information about the prints.

05/11/2024

Tail Tale is back in print!

Follow this wondrous Warli cat as she looks to exchange her old tail for a new one!

And help her choose her pick from the tails on display - in thickets of plant and bush, water rock, all beautifully rendered by Warli artists Tushar and Mayur Vayeda.

Text: Anushka Ravishankar
Art: Tushar and Mayur Vayeda
Design: Dhwani Shah

30/10/2024

Inspirations

Since our earliest days we have experimented with the form of the book – drawing from diverse traditions of book-making. In 2012, Gita Wolf visited Mexico and met Ámbar Past, the American woman who has made Mexico (San Cristóbal) her home since the 1970s. Among other things Past founded an artists’ workshop
for making handmade paper and books, Taller Leñateros. The workshop produced an array of astonishing books, bringing together visual forms – the printed book, the mask, the shrine…

These experiments recalled a pre-Hispanic past, when Mayan people created their own books – making handmade paper and handbound books. In addition, Past and her team also published political chapbooks, re-using paper and board.

We were hugely inspired by these efforts – which made
possible these wonderful and meaningful objects.

27/10/2024

Thanks for two rich and inspirational days at the festival! !

25/10/2024

Those who have been reading our books for a long time have often wondered about the Tara Logo - that it has never been one thing, and only for the past decade or so, it has remained the same. Why did we change our logo at the times that we did? One reason was that we were never quite one kind of publisher. We started out doing children’s picture books, but very soon had titles in art and craft pedagogy, books for teachers, and over the years, we began to publish illustrated books for adults, graphic narratives, books that engaged with art and art history... So, each time we struck out in a new direction, I guess we came up with a new logo - and this happened without too much deliberation.

23/10/2024

We’ll be at the

Check out our new titles and also prints and cards.

And you wouldn’t want to miss out on our stationery, especially the inimitable flukebooks.

Artwork featured in today’s post is by Tushar Vayeda and Mayur Vayeda from the book ‘Seed’

18/10/2024

Come and see us at the Frankfurt Book Fair! Hall 6.1 D112

18/10/2024

Sneak-peek!

Here are some pictures of prospective titles -

• On the Bhil people and their ecological vision

• An illustrated tale of resistance from Brazil

• A beautiful silkscreenprinted book that celebrates 100 years of Surrealism

• An enchanting visual parable of birds and trees

• A Pardhan Gond artist’s visual memoir

15/10/2024

The North-east monsoon is almost here - welcoming stormy skies, and a belligerent sea with these images from ‘The Enduring Ark’, illustrated by Joydeb Chitrakar.

The rain pelts down on the ark, outfitted to leave an impending flood - and here it goes, sailing away on a blue and black ocean...

This leperello opens out to capture the immensity of the sea...

Designed by: .yamakami

To know more about the book, click on the link in our bio.

11/10/2024

It's that time of the year again. We will be at the Frankfurt Bookfair next week, with prospective titles and old favorites to show and share with fellow publishers

Some special.offerings, including a cloth book for babies and toddlers. And a new handmade title that draws on the Surrealist archive. Plus prints, cards and stationery.

Do stop by to check out new titles and all the rest.

Watch this space for a sneak peek at our prospective titles.

Art featured in today's post is by Sangita Jogi from 'The Women I could Be'.

27/09/2024

From the archive

We moved into Book Building in 2011 but the space kept growing... as our authors-artists added their own to the walls.

Here is Bhajju Shyam, Pardhan God artist, adding last touches to the magnificent tree that he painted on the wall of our courtyard.

The painting has weathered well for the most part, inspite of the Chennai heat and rain.

As the sun slants and we wait our yearly monsoon we were reminded of the play with light and shade that Bhajju worked with in Sept-Oct, 2011.

12/09/2024

Workshop stories

Tara has a line of titles in art pedagogy. The best known of these are the 8 Ways to Draw series. Each of these books features a particular animal drawn in different ways and by artists from different indigenous and folk traditions of Indian art. The accompanying text contains facts about the animals and also calls attention to how they have been rendered.

The idea is to get children to respond to the art and add their own to the image, by coloring, playing with line and shade, extending a drawing...

In other words, we don't want kids 'imitate' a certain style and tradition. For we see traditions as emerging from dynamic life worlds - a style is thus a way of rendering as well as a perspective. It is inspirational and not quite there for imitation.

We learned how and why this was so, from the art workshops that we organised with indigenous and.folk artists. The artists are natural teachers and the children grasped the logic of their compositions, and went on to do their own - with the artists assisting them.

Check out these photos from more than a decade ago, from a Patua scroll painting workshop.

And for the books go to the links on our profile.

06/09/2024

Packing Stories

All stacked and ready to go - flukebooks on the move..

The recipient:books@manic. And Ranjith will be kept busy for the next hour before these books find their way to Australia.

03/09/2024

Design Stories: Spot the gold!

The God of Money is dotted with gold. This accordion book unfolds to reveal a layered visual retelling of Karl Marx's famous rant against money in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844.

Drawing on medieval European art and contemporary Indian calendar art, Spanish artist Maguma foregrounds a tale of hoarding and greed.

In order to capture the spirit of 'possession' that Marx rails against, Maguma created visual occasions to highlight the lure of money - through the use of a 'spot' colour, in this case, deep yellow.

And the result is a metallic shine that runs like a connecting thread through the book.

30/08/2024

New sign up at our store on Auroville Road! If you're in the area, come and visit...

28/08/2024

A gorgeous book, Speaking to an Elephant and other Tales from the Kadars, by Manish Chandi and Madhuri Ramesh features these rich illustrations by Matthew Frame.

Designed by Dhwani Shah in ways that convey the forest thickets which are home to these tales, the book is one of a kind.

We feature here the endpapers.

Check out this title and others like it on our website, through the link in our bio.

Address

Book Building, 9 CGE Housing Colony, Off Kuppam Beach Road, Thiruvanmiyur
Chennai
600041

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 7pm
Tuesday	10am - 7pm
Wednesday	10am - 7pm
Thursday	10am - 7pm
Friday	10am - 7pm
Saturday	10am - 7pm

Telephone

+91 44 42601033

Website

http://www.tarabooks.com/book-building

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Videos

Last few hours of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2024 We're still there at 6.1 D112 #frankfurtbookfair #tarabooks

Another @bolognachildrensbookfair comes to an end today… Take a look at the Tara Books section of the Small World Stand!

We’re setting up shop! Books & Things—our new space in Auroville created in collaboration with Studio Tolsta—is now open for business. Brought together by our innovative approach to design, and our shared interest in the ethical process of making things, our store is a collection of high quality products that take contemporary art and design in new directions. Drop by to browse through our shelves and pick up books, prints, stationery, contemporary homeware, bags and more!

Something’s brewing! Our next book is an age-defying, genre-defying work where words transform into images—guaranteed to delight, challenge and confound in equal measure. *I Want to Be* releases this Friday! Mark your calendars. #typography #typeplay #nonsense #verse #NewRelease #comingsoon

What's its name? Where's it at? What could it be? You'll see! We revisited an iconic project with Anushka Ravishankar and Rathna Ramanathan and it's nearly ready. #ComingSoon #nonsense #typography #typeplay #typeasimage

There’s no time like the present... and no present quite like our books! Our festive One, Two, Free offer ends soon—this is the last week to get books, cards and prints packed in these special boxes featuring silkscreen-printed art from our books. PS. You can also get 10% off and the chance to win the freebies featured in this video, by placing an order of any value on tarabooks.com before December 14th! Illustrations on the boxes by Bhajju Shyam from the book *The Night Life of Trees*, Sunita from *Gobble You Up* and Mayur and Tushar Vayeda from *The Deep*