Bibliofile

Publishing Punch

The Penguin-Random House merger, brought about earlier this year, making the combine the world's biggest publishing house, is yet to make any tangible difference on the ground here. For now, the editors, marketing and sales people are doing the same work but there will be some rationalisation and mixing of teams soon. One thing peo­ple at Random House are praying is for their HQ in Delhi to move to where Penguin is. Presently, Random House is in a drab business district in Noida, and Penguin is in south Delhi’s tony Panchsheel Park. “Imagine, we can go to Hauz Khas Village for lunch every day....”, said one editor at Random. Their worst fear: what if the Penguin staff moves to Noida.

Quick To The Tongue

This must be the most delightful event CSE has organised in a long time—the lau­nch of their book First Food, about vegetables we no longer cook regularly (rec­ipes in Outlook, August 12). There was the inimitable Sunita Nar­ain talking about how many of these plants can’t flourish as we have ruined the environment, but the day belo­nged to Zaika India Ka host Vinod Dua. He recited poems on food from the masters. Who knew Ghalib had written so ende­aringly about dal or Akbar Allahabadi on beans? Dua had another suggestion: why not bring out a sequel about the forgotten liquors of India. Cheers to that.

In Calcutta ’71

Jhumpa Lahiri’s new novel The Lowl­and, which was in the Booker longlist, has now made it to the shortlist. It still hasn't been launched here but the buzz around it is tremendous. It’s the story of two brothers—one living in the US and the other invo­lved in the Naxal movement in Bengal. So far, reviews in the British papers have been mixed.