Bibliofile

Flip-A-Stick Book

When it is the biography of God himself, the stakes are big. Where is Namma Thalaivar Rajini? (Where’s our chief Rajni) is the Facebook game Penguin has started to push its next big book, Rajnikanth—A Definitive Biography by Naman Ramachandran. The evil Joker Ravanan has kidnapped our hero and fans can save him by answering trivia about Rajni’s life and times. The superstar’s fan clubs have joined the game and at last count there were a few lakh people playing.

On Brydon’s Horse

William Dalrymple is promoting his Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, Bloomsbury’s first book in India, on a war footing. He made an impassioned slide-show presentation about the book’s genesis and its major characters at events in Delhi and Mumbai. In Delhi, Dalrymple  sat between two screens showing etchings of the First Afghan War, topping his glass of red wine, recounting stories of British soldiers and Afghan warriors in the spring of 1839, of the politics and palace intrigue, the stories getting juicier as the wine worked its way into his veins.

Restrained Masala

Roli Books’ lusciously produced Dining with the Maharajas: A Thousand Years of Culinary Tradition, with recipes from the royal families of Mysore to Patiala and Udaipur to Tripura, was not easy to put together. The problem wasn’t the maharajas, who happily gave access into their kitchens. But the recipes had to be cajoled out of the cooks. Most would leave some crucial ingredient out. It took over three years to coax the authentic recipes out of them!