Our civilization is an epitome of the knowledge and memories accumulated by the generations that have gone before. To partake of it we must need to get into touch with their thought. The only way to do this and so become a cultured person is by reading. Nothing can take place of reading – no lecture or image on a screen has the same power to enlighten. Pictures are a most valuable means of illustrating a written text, but they hardly enable us to form general ideas. Films, like the spoken word, flow by and are lost to us; it is difficult to turn back to them for reference. Books abide as lifelong companions.
– Andre Maurois
The young man belonging to an affluent family was interviewing a prospective bride. The young man shot a volley of questions at her: ‘What are your educational qualifications?’; ‘Do you know about stock-market?’; ‘Can you operate computers?’; ‘Do you chat on internet?’... The young lady gave satisfactory answers and was eventually declared ‘pass’ in a somewhat smug manner by the young man.
It was now the turn of the young lady. She had only one question to ask. She queried: ‘Have you read Umashankar, Sundaram, Dhumketu and Pannalal? Do you know something about Kalidas, Shakespeare and Tagore?’ To this, the young man shook his head and nonchalantly declared his ignorance. ‘Sorry, my dear friend, I cannot spend my whole life with someone who is so poor,’ said the young lady and stormed out of the room.
As Thoreau said there is no one as poor and as miserable as one who does not have love for reading and books. If you also feel like of showing genuine respect for books and for cultivating good reading habits; for celebrating the pleasure of enriching experience of reading good Gujarati books you are heartily welcome to the garden of IMAGE PUBLICATIONS. Come and see what ‘Image’ has done to improve and enhance the glory of books and cultivate good reading habits.
The first and foremost function of Image is book publishing. In the last many years it has brought out hundreds of titles of high literary quality catering to varied interests and they are attractively printed with a high degree of aesthetic appeal. Image adds about 50 new titles every year, each proving to be a sleek product.
Image Publication does / intend to do following in this dimension of the culture and formation of a healthy society:
To make readers familiar with the works of our past masters or classics by publishing their edited / abridged versions or extracts from them;
Bringing out attractively printed, life-oriented books
Organization of programs that take literature to the people
Enrich libraries with new titles relevant to the present-day world
Formation of Book-family clubs
Setting up Gujarati book-shops
To facilitate browsing and obtaining of books in the easiest manner possible
Suresh Dalal
Naveenbhai Dave | Gopal Dave | Utpal Bhayani
Hiten Anandpara | Apurva Ashar | Ankit Trivedi | Mukesh Joshi
Ketan Joshi | Balkrishna Solanki | Pravin Desai | Afzal Shekh | Vishal Patil | Alok Vyas | Manzil Pandya
Ramesh Patel | K. A. Ulhas | Sunil Shah | Piyush Salvi | Bharat Bhuvan (Baban) | Anil Tirlodkar | Sejal Ponda
Books are not meant to be imprisoned in cupboards or godowns. They must reach the reading public. With this aim in view, Image has devised a novel ‘Book-Family Scheme’ under which the family has to pay Rs.3000/- once a year. During the course of the year books worth Rs.4000/-, culled by experts and book-lovers, will be dispatched to the subscribers at their home-address (by air mail in foreign countries). No more hassle of visiting bookshops and selecting the books. Members of the family can, then, read and enjoy books at leisure. Members of the scheme are sent two free invitation cards for the function organized by Image in their city.
With a view to making books available to book lovers, Image opened a small but cosy ‘book-home’ in 1996 at Princess Street, Mumbai. Here one can browse through the books and buy them if they choose to. In 1998 it set up another such ‘book-home’ in Ahmedabad at Ambawadi Circle. Image intends to open many more such ‘homes’ in other cities and towns.
Image is also concerned about those who want to read good books but whose resources are so limited that they are not able to buy books. Image wishes to help them by making books available to them through libraries, especially those in the rural areas, thus enriching the libraries also. Image wants to stock libraries by gifting sets of books. A step was taken in this direction by launching ‘Library Enrichment Campaign’ in 1998. There are people who donate generously for setting up hospitals for the physical well-being of the people. Image knew that there are those who are willing to donate equally generously for gifting sets of books to libraries for cultural well-being of the people. With this idea in mind launching of the ‘Image Book Culture Trust’ took shape.
Umashankar Joshi once said that if people do not honor their great luminaries at the appropriate time, they would, in course of time, fail to get great worthies. Image Book Culture Trust invites donors to donate for Library Enrichment Campaign. To introduce to the new generation some of our classics, donors can sponsor a series comprising of small biographies or commemorative volume of some literary luminary. Image has published such titles from munificence thus received – ‘Liludi Dhartithi...’ (Chunilal Madia-Vishesh), ‘Sunshine’ (Jayanti Dalal-Vishesh), ‘Namu te hasya brahmane’ (Vinod Bhatt-Vishesh) ‘Sanskrutipurush Kakasaheb’ (Kaka Kalelkar-Vishesh), ‘Hasyendra Jyotindra’ (Jyotindra Dave-Vishesh) and ‘Munshino Vaibhav’ (Kanaiyalal Munshi-Vishesh). These special volumes have been gifted to schools and colleges.
