‘Laugh With Me’: Ruskin Bond offers poignant, humorous anecdotes about his writing career

The writerly life can look like one never-ending party to readers who track their favourite authors on social media, hopping from book signings to literature festivals to award ceremonies. But this seductive illusion conceals the messy and uncomfortable realities that many authors have to live with. Ruskin Bond’s new book, Laugh With Me, is a joy to read because it sheds all pretence.

A first-person narrative by Bond, who celebrated his 92nd birthday in May of 2026, it grants privileged access to the inner world of a celebrated writer, and makes one chuckle along. He writes, for instance, of a time in his late twenties when he felt that his publishers were not doing enough to publicise a newly published short story collection, as a result of which it was not available in bookstores at Khan Market, Connaught Place, and Shankar Market in Delhi.

His frantic search led him to Janpath, where he found a copy at a small bookshop. “It was firmly wedged at the bottom of a pile of other writers’ bestsellers – Khushwant Singh, Shobha Dé, Harold Robbins, Vikram Seth, Roald Dahl – everyone on top of poor little RB,” he writes. This anecdote will strike a chord with every debut author, wallowing...

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