Bibliofile

Wonder why the trend hasn’t ever caught on here. It’s not as if there is a dearth of material. For those in search of instant fame and fortune, here are a few titles up for grabs: ‘The Man Upstairs—How He Kicked Me Out of the Editor’s Chair’; ‘The Big B—The Face Behind the Paint’; ‘Driving Ms Butterfly—The True Story of Her Chauffeur’; ‘When I Was Sukhram’s Driver/Cook/Dhobi’; ‘Amma—Bringing up Priyanka’s Baby’.

Yet another form of subversive literature is surfacing in another part of the world. The title of the book that is creating a storm in China nowadays is innocuous enough: I’m Mediocre, I’m Happy. But teachers, parents and pundits are closing ranks against Zhou Hong’s pernicious doctrine that it’s better to raise children who are happy rather than successful. Not surprisingly, the book has not proved to be a bestseller despite the controversy. It sold only 20,000 copies compared to last year’s bestseller, Harvard Girl, which sold over 1.1 million copies. For achievement-driven China, the book was just what parents needed: it tells how parents trained their little darling from birth to get into Harvard. Like all bestsellers, Harvard Girl spawned a host of imitations, including Harvard Boy and Cambridge Girl. Of course, it would be ‘IIT Boy’, or perhaps, ‘How to Get My Child into IIM’ out here.