Newly Recharged
The shortlist for Crossword’s annual book prize—renamed as Vodaphone Crossword Book Award—is out, and surprisingly, all the usual suspects have been left out, including Booker-shortlisted Animal’s People by Indra Sinha, Booker nominee Nikita Lalwani’s Gifted and Raj Kamal Jha’s Fireproof. Instead, we have two historical novels by uncelebrated authors—A Girl and a River by Usha K.R. and The City of Love by Rimi Chatterjee; two debut novels—Lunatic in My Head by Anjum Hasan and Home Products by Amitava Kumar competing with M.G. Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song and Tabish Khair’s Filming: A Love Story.