Bibliofile

David’s Last Pay

David Davidar received a parting kick from Penguin: his accuser, Lisa Rundle, has been given her old job back. And as if that was not enough egg on his face, the Penguin Group’s ceo John Makinson was quoted saying that taking Rundle back was good for the firm both “commercially and ethically”. Davidar’s ouster has also set off a reshuffle: Penguin India ceo, Mike Bryan, will now step into Davidar’s trimmed-down job in Canada. Andrew Phillips will take over Bryan’s job, in a sort of kick upstairs from deputy ceo of sister concern DK to Penguin International ceo in charge of India, Africa and the Middle East.

Lives Of Others

The mystery surrounding the exclusion of William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives from Crossword prize’s longlist is solved: the ever-evolving rules of the awards have been changed to exclude authors who don’t hold Indian passports. As an understandably upset Dalrymple says, “So it is now possible, in principle, for an Indian passport-holder living in Finland and writing about, say, the Vikings, to win while Rana Dasgupta (long-resident here but holding a British passport) writing about Delhi is not eligible....”