Bibliofile

For Random House's Simon Littlewood, who is in India quite frequently these days thanks to their fledgling India division, the booming publishing industry here remains something of an oriental puzzle. Why, for example, books like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, which have disappeared aeons ago from Random House's publishing lists elsewhere, continues to sell here—and how! Or for that matter, other long-forgotten titles such as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or The Road Less Travelled. Not that he is complaining about the mysteries of Indian readers' tastes—what better way, after all, to buy some breathing space while they figure out how exactly to squeeze their way past market leader Penguin?

Wonder why no Indian publisher has yet thought of a tell-all on Indian literary prizes like the one Booker Prize ex-jurist Martyn Goff is planning? Certainly not for the lack of material. Remember the time Amrita Pritam cast the deciding vote for herself in a Sahitya Akademi tie for the prize?