F O L I O, Thiruvananthapuram,entered the world of book publishing in mid 2008 with two books that stand out for their novelty. F O L I O's maiden venture was The Playback in Malayalam Cinema by journalist- writer Kiran Ravindran. The book is an entertaining history of Malayalam film music from the time of the first talkie, 'Balan' of 1938, to the present. For any reader familiar with Malayalam film music it is an enchanting trip down the memory lane.For one uninitiated it is a work that will inspire a closer look at and deeper understanding of the music of Malayalam cinema.The book has three separate sections profiling all the lyricists, composers and singers who made Malayalam cinema music what it is today. It also has a long list of film songs with identification of the Carnatic Ragas in which they are composed.The book has Foreword by the eminent singer Dr K J Yesudas.
F O L I O's second presentation was ‘Kerala Coast:A Byway in History’ by Dr V Sankaran Nair, a book that can well be described as an etymological treasure trove. Drawing heavily from linguistics, and touching upon history, geography and science, Dr Nair traces the globe trotting of the ubiquitous kindi, the water bearing vessel with spout that has a hoary past and holy present. From kindi and its use as ships’ ballast (called charrack kindi) he goes further to pinpoint a link to Carrack, the ship in which Vasco Da Gama reached Kappad on the Kerala coast in 1498. According to Dr Nair, the book is the biography of a single word carrack which is a transliteration of the word charrack. The book has a Foreword by Dr G Balamohan Thampi, former Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University.
F O L I O's third offering was Three Centuries of Madras by Parvathy Menon, a book that delved into the history of Madras from the colonial period to the present.
On the 9th of March,2009, F O L I O formally released Late Rains, an anthology of poems by M Mohankumar, a familiar name in the world of contemporary Indian poetry in English. Late Rains was Mohankumar's sixth book of poems, a representative volume that transports the reader to a past evoking tender memories and a mood of nostalgia. F O L I O's first book of fiction, Chrysalis, by Subin Gopi, a Bangalore based software engineer, came out in the middle of July 2009.
F O L I O's other titles include Ayyappa Paniker's last anthology Pathumanippookkal, translated as Poetry at Midnight, 'Me My Friend' by Ms Deeya Nayar-Nambiar, 'What The Night Told Me' by Dr Mary Nirmala, Slant of Light by M Mohankumar,Writing Again by Siddhartha Menon,, When One Strays into Your Life by G N Panikkar, all anthologies, and short story collections 'Call of the Blue River' by R K Ramachandran Nair and Pappante Kathakal (Malayalam) by Dr K Padmanabhan Nair. Kerala Coast: A Byway in History by Dr V Sankaran Nair and two books on Agriculture, Elements of Plant Protection and Elements of Agriculture, by Seena R Subhagan and Dr D Dhalin are among the other books brought out by Folio.
