Bibliofile

Irish Cream

Indians may consider W.B. Yeats, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce as English writers, but ask the Irish. The World Book Fair will be the right time, they figure, to project Irish writers and their contribution to world literature, including Indian (remember the Yeats-Tagore connection? That's going to be commemorated with a statue of Tagore in Ireland around the same time). A contingent of Irish writers will attend the World Book Fair this winter.

Google All the Way
Googling is reaching epidemic proportions among writers, especially celebrity ones. Time was when writers received a sheaf of critical notices from their publisher which they could either read and trash or trash without reading. Alas, no longer. Googling what the world has to say about oneself can become a time-wasting obsession. Commenting on the trend, Mohsin Hamid said wisely, even if half in fun: writers, he felt, should limit googling to once a week at the most. Experience speaking?