Bibliofile

After attempting a bestseller on the top investigative agency, former CBI director Joginder Singh is back to his first love: compiling self-help books. His latest is Yes You Can which "comes from the actual first-hand experience of a man who reached the pinnacle of success.... He became known nation-wide as an extraordinary achiever and crusader". Singh has generously shared his secrets on how to reach that pinnacle: two watches, one of them in stop watch mode so that he’s conscious of the time he spends on exercise, a dinner or social function. The other’s a recorder by his bedside should a brilliant idea strike at midnight.

Salman Rushdie was always a bad loser. Remember how he went back after the Commonwealth awards and called the judge who cast the deciding vote against him a "wall-faced woman"? Shashi Deshpande chose not to respond but Martyn Goff, administrator for the Booker Prize for the last 30 years, went to town with Rushdie’s Clark Gablesque parting shot to him when he lost to J.M. Coetzee. "Fuck off!" is what the bad-tempered Rushdie delivered, ungracefully.