But Penguin may yet live up to its boast of bagging a book by a President in office. Readying for publication is a book by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam called Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power within India. A sequel to his 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium, Kalam examines in his second book why, given all our skills and resources, Indians settle so often for the worst. Sounding more like new-age guru Deepak Chopra than a probable President, Kalam declares in his new book that we have the power to build the good life. Incidentally, Kalam confesses in his introduction that he was troubled by more self-doubt than he would like to acknowledge when he started on this book. Who was he to write on so large a theme, and what did he really know about developing a nation, beyond building rockets? He can now bury his doubts forever.
Adebut novel is making headlines on both sides of the Atlantic for a reason other than a large advance. There has so far been no review of Everything is Illuminated that does not mention that its author, Jonathan Safran Foer, was born in 1977. As one London reviewer put it, "One braces oneself for embarrassing juvenilia, and, in places, one gets it...makes one angry at the culture that allows such arrant nonsense to be printed." At least, Foer has the excuse of youth and talent: what can one say about the juvenilia produced here by authors twice his age?
