Bibliofile

Book Cabinet
A slew of forthcoming tomes, on the worthy themes of social justice, good governance and ethics in public life, seem tailor-made for the new UPA cabinet’s reading list. Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice is due in August. Close on its heels come Subroto Bagchi’s The Ethical Worker and Gurcharan Das’s On the Difficulty of Being Good: The Subtle Art of Dharma. Both provide answers to moral dilemmas in contemporary political and corporate life.

Hot-blooded Affair
Among this year’s most awaited non-fiction titles is Murder in Mumbai. Written by Mumbai Mirror editor Meenal Baghel, in the ‘faction’ style of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, it reconstructs the sensational murder last May of young TV executive Neeraj Grover, allegedly hacked to death by aspiring actress Maria Susairaj and her dashing naval officer boyfriend Emile Jerome. The ‘whodunnit’ of this crime may be known, but the ‘why they did it’ remains a mystery that continues to grip Maximum City. Wait until autumn for the full story.