Mashpee’s Man
The quiet and unhurried life of Neel Mukherjee, of long walks identifying trees and cooking leisurely lunches, of long chats with his cat Mashpee, has been Bookered. His place in the world’s biggest literary award’s shortlist must seem to the reclusive author like when the spine of an old book suddenly gives as you pick it up from the shelf, the pages all flying about. “Yes, things are indeed a bit frantic at the moment,” he says. It is going to be a whirlwind ride of book promotions, TV talkshows, press interviews, photoshoots in London. Neel flies down to Delhi next week to talk about his book The Lives of Others, when a series of press interactions are planned. His Indian readers will get to know him better soon.
First Growls
Publisher and editor Ravi Singh, who quit Aleph reportedly over differences on the company’s decision not to print Wendy Doniger’s On Hinduism after a lawsuit by a right-wing Hindu group, has teamed up with FEEL Books of ex-MD of Cambridge Press Manas Saikia to start a new imprint. They are thinking of calling it Speaking Tiger (Their first choice, Flying Tiger, inspired by Padmasambhava, is taken). He has some authors on board, is working on getting more and the first books from the imprint will be out in January.
A Housewife Speaks
This must be a first, a blurb by Sunny Leone! “A very interesting read. (An) insightful (look) into a woman’s world”, says the ex-porn star of Madhuri Banerjee’s book Scandalous Housewives, which the back-flap describes as “a story of four...housewives living in a highrise who sin in pleasure”.
