The Book Show Effect

FROM a balcony in Assagao, the morning air carries the mingled scents of wet leaves and coastal sunblock.

- DIYA MARIA GEORGE

Scooters pause at the bend below, their riders drifting in and out of view as if they were characters stepping on and off a stage. On the railing, a pale paperback lies open, The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, its pages ruffling every time a breeze pushes through. This is where we find Ananthi Iyappan, one of Tamil Nadu’s most recognisable book voices, reading with one eye on the text and the other on the quiet theatre of people “loitering around in their own world,” as she puts it.

“I have always been fascinated with how our brain shapes or shades the world,” she says. Ananthi’s journey began long before her YouTube numbers rose. She started out as a radio jockey, talking into a mic with that unmistakable expressive energy she’s known for. “I love to talk, sing, dance,” she says. But radio also made her aware of what drained her. Talking about things that didn’t excite her started feeling like using the wrong fuel. A shift arrived through a morning infotainment show where she interviewed experts from across fields. Those conversations stretched her curiosity. “The experience significantly broadened my interests,” she says. It aligned her toward the person she would become — someone driven by deeper, wider subjects.

The Book Show, her YouTube channel, grew in the way real communities do. “The growth has been super organic,” she says. The defining moments weren't the viral videos or the brand recognitions, though becoming Amazon’s Popular Choice Book Influencer for 2025 sits prominently on her list. What truly moved her were private exchanges — followers who wrote to say her videos had accompanied them through hard weeks, shifted their perspective, or simply added company to lonely commutes. “The conversations with my followers truly sustained this journey with the necessary zest,” she says.