Bibliofile
So what explains the fact that homegrown authors in angrezi are selling in numbers that rival bestselling records in the UK, breaking all past sales records?
All Ignited
But the cinderella days of our desi authors may soon be over, considering how our homegrown authors are selling in numbers that rival bestselling records in the UK. Breaking all past sales records—desi, videshi or NRI—is A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Ignited Minds has sold a whopping 3,25,000 copies so far, more than Kiran Desai's Booker-winning Inheritance of Loss (90,000) or Amartya Sen's Argumentative Indian (1 lakh). And desi bestselling phenomenon Shobhaa De continues to be on top of the charts, even in her new avatar as agony aunt-cum-art-of-living guru. Spouse has just crossed the 70,000 mark.
A Fine Balance
Road ragers, beware. Delhi's Lt Gov Tejinder Khanna is plotting to make them bibliophiles. The new penalty he's proposing for road crime is six hours of uninterrupted reading at a library stocked only with meditation and philosophy books. A recipe for bibliophiles or bibliophobes?