Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah: India – Partition Independence might arguably be the most controversial book written by a politician in recent times but many people (mainly politicians) have reacted to it in a knee jerk manner, without really reading it. This attitude might have boosted the book’s sales no end, but left readers pretty much in the dark. Well, almost a fortnight after its release, some reviews of the book are in, so readers can draw their own conclusions:

The Indian Express:  “It is a prodigious work of scholarship, wide-ranging in its references and well documented. It has its own historical judgments to make and sometimes they are too swift. But there is no doubt that the book opens up serious and interesting questions. It has a narrative of its own. Partition was not the result of an irrevocable religious cleavage between Hindus and Muslims. It was squarely a product of politics.” http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jaswants-jinnah/506402/

Business Line:  ”India’s Partition was the result of a very complex process. Mr Singh is seeking to establish an even more complex case through the means of this book. For reasons best known to him, he has chosen to write it as a sort of lawyer’s brief. That’s not the best way to write a book.” http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/08/21/stories/2009082150790800.htm

Mint: “Singh’s message is simple: Jinnah is not the villain he is made out to be. The Congress party, its leaders, especially Nehru, were responsible for decisions that went terribly wrong, resulting in the division of India…Despite everything, however, it is hard to digest the author’s contention that a single burst of emotion at Minar-e-Pakistan motivated him to write a book on such a complex subject. Scholars rarely go by emotion when they choose their subjects, and politicians are hardly known to be guided by their hearts.” http://www.livemint.com/2009/08/28203907/Jinnah-uncorked.html

The Pioneer: “Mr Singh’s thesis is terribly flawed… His misplaced sympathy for Jinnah and antipathy for Nehru, Patel and other Congress leaders does violence to our secular, democratic ideals even as it treats the perpetrators of religion-based hatred with much compassion and understanding. This is a dangerous argument. Every citizen who values secularism and democracy and hopes for the extension of these ideals, specially into non-secular frontiers like Pakistan, must summarily reject Mr Singh’s formulation. ” http://www.dailypioneer.com/198000/Flawed-thesis-on-partition.html

Even as Google and the publishing industry lock horns over digital publishing of books, Anthony Zuiker, the creator of the popular television series CSI:Crime Scene Investigation, has released what he terms a “digi-novel.” The novel, which is called Level 26, combines traditional book media with video and the Internet. Readers of the book will have to log on to  website after every twenty pages or so, using a special code to watch a three-minute film clip tied to the story. The book has been written by Duane Swierczynski, while the film clips, called “cyber-bridges,”  have been written and directed by Zuiker himself. The book can also be read without watching the “cyber-bridges,” though, which makes one doubt the wisdom of their existence in the first place!

Still, an interesting spin on the routine tone, wouldn’t you say?

One does not know whether the ban in the US on 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, the controversial sequel to JD Salinger’s cult book, Catcher in the Rye, will be lifted but one thing is clear – the judge presiding the case does not think too highly of it. Speaking of the book, which was written by Swedish author Fredrik Colting under the pseudonym JD California, Judge Guido Calabresi called it “a rather dismal piece of work if I may say so.”

All of which does not really augur too well for the book, which has been caught up in a controversy in the US, where it has been banned, even though Colting and his lawyers argue that it is significantly different from the original. Salinger has vehemently opposed the publication of any sort of sequel to his book. The book has been published in parts of Europe but has been banned in the US – something that Colting and his lawyers are trying their best to overturn.

One thought that the trend of celebrities coming out with books featuring themselves in the altogether had died out with Madonna’s eminently forgettable Sex. However, it seems that we were wrong. For, news has come in that supermodel Heidi Klum is planning to come out with a coffe table book, which she herself describes as “very naughty.”

Titled Rankin’s Heidilicious, the book is a collaboration between Klum and renowned photographer Rankin and will feature several photographs of Klum not wearing too much. According to what Klum told Contactmusic.com, Rankin has a talent for getting her clothes off. “‘ He always gets me to take my clothes off for some reason. We’ll do some job and then he’ll say, ‘Why don’t we shoot some more things?’ and I’ll wind up without anything on,” she told the website. The imagination boggles!

The book is due for release on October 15 and will come with a price tag of $65 – who said naughty pictures came cheap?

In a major corporate move, Walt Disney has bought out Marvel Entertainment, the company that brings out some of the most popular action comic strips in the world such as The Hulk, Wolverine and Spiderman. The price was a staggering $4 billion. The deal will give Disney more than 5,000 Marvel characters to market in movies, theme parks, stores and on television. Now, we just wonder how Disney will handle films that feature Marvel comic strip heroes – we do not want Spidey getting all mushy and gooey, do we?

We made our way to the 16th Delhi Book Fair yesterday and honestly, we are not too impressed. Book lovers normally go to these events expecting to see new books, books that have not been released in India, and stumble across members of the literati. Well, neither was in evidence yesterday. Although there were a number of notable publishers (Penguin, Oxford University Press, Rupa, Viva) present, there were hardly any notable new titles (almost every stall we visited was trying to peddle THAT book by Jaswant Singh) and hardly an author in sight at any of the stalls. The authors we did manage to see were mainly newbies, bored to death at the sight of nearly empty halls.
It is not doom and gloom, however. If you are hunting for low-price books, the event will be a godsend. A number of distributors are offloading their stock at very low prices, and there are a number of “pick any book for Rs 100 or Rs 50″ deals to go around. Unfortunately, that does not really please us as it basically reduces what had been one of Delhi’s most important literary events to the state of a second hand book sale.
We will be going there again (the fair is on till September 6) but with no great expectations, we are afraid.

The 15th Delhi Book Fair has started at Pragati Maidan in Delhi. The fair will feature leading publishers and distributors from India and all over the world, and will run uptil September 6. Of late, the event has been losing some of its charm with some leading publishers staying away and with many observers considering it an event which provided distributors with an opportunity to get rid of excess stock. For book lovers, however, it generally provides the opportunity to grab some good deals on relatively old titles. We will be giving you our observations when we attend the fair on Monday.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, is set to be made into a film. The book, which talked about how Gilbert ate, prayed and loved (how did you guess that) her way out of depression in three countries after a bitter divorce, stayed in the New York Times Bestseller List for more than a hundred weeks and has been considered as an inspiring work by many. Well, it seems set to inspire a film now and with a star cast at that. 

Oscar winner Julia Roberts has been cast in the lead for the film version, which will be directed by Ryan Murphy and is rumoured to be produced by Brad Pitt and his production company, Production B. Other members of the cast include Billy Crudup, James Franco and Javier Bardem.

When was the last time we had press briefings about what the US President is going to read during a break from work? His passion for reading makes Barack Obama perhaps one of the most literary presidents in recent US history (ok, maybe since Jimmy Carter). Anyway, as he and his wife take a break at Martha’s Vineyard, we have been informed about the five books that the Prez hopes to read during his time off. Here is the list:

• Lush Life by Richard Price: A novel based in New York. Ah, classy stuff!
• The Way Home by George Pelecanos: a thriller, proving that beneath that erudite exterior, Obama is human after all and does like to get his pulse racing.
• John Adams by David McCullough: The biography of the second US Prez that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. Maybe Barack will pass on notes to his own biographers (now, there’s a thought!).
• Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas (The World is Flat) Friedman: A trifle preachy and pompous as ever, but what narration. Al Gore would approve, perhaps.
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf: Another bestselling novel.

So that makes it, two non-fiction and three fiction reads. Spanning over two thousand pages. Happy reading, Mr President!

Whatever qualities the hardcover fiction section of the New York Times’ bestseller list may have, longevity at the top is not one of them. The latest edition of the list once again saw new titles thrashing their way to the top with the top two slots falling to them, and four places in the top ten going to books making their first appearance.  Pat Conroy’s South Of Broad took first place while Sandra Brown’s murder-driven thriller, Smash Cut came in second. Nancy Grace puts a prosecutor turned therapist back into crime fighting ways with the No. 6 spot occupying The Eleventh Victim and rounding off the newcomer’s bestseller ball is Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, which has more than a touch of sorcery about it. Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, a tale of a white woman and two black maids in 1960s America, is the only oldie in the top ten, completing its twentieth week in the charts and still sitting pretty at No.3. 

As ever, things are more stable on the non-fiction charts. Alana Stewart’s My Journey With Farah, detailing her friendship with Hollywood star Farah Fawcett is the only notable newcomer, coming in at number nine. Michelle Malkin’s anti-Obama rant, Culture of Corruption remains at number one, while Malcom Gladwell’s quirky Outliers continues at number two.

We had heard of book publishers offering publications extracts from their books to promote them, but thanks toall the controversy being generated over Jaswant Singh’s book on Jinnah, Rupa has turned the tables neatly. A Tweet from one of our friends informs us that the publishing house has placed a price tag of Rs 10,000 on extracts from the book. Jaswant ji may not have been able to change the BJP with his book, but he sure has changed the book promotion business.

Barely two days after notable Delhi booksellers told us that Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah: India-Partition Independence was selling like “hot cakes,” the statistics about the book’s sales are coming in. And they make for very interesting reading indeed. According to IBN Live’s website (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/expulsion-catapults-jaswants-book-to-bestseller-slot/99700-40.html), the hardcover version of the book has already gone into its eighth print, while the book is expected to sell around 40,000 copies in its very first week. Top that off with the fact that the book has sold more than a thousand copies across the border in Pakistan and you have statistics that would have most bestselling authors turning green with envy. 

Singh’s political career might be at the crossroads but his innings as an author is truly flourishing!

Even as the latest book on the man credited with creating Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, wreaks general political havoc in India and specific havoc in the BJP, here’s a list of five books on the man known as Qaid e Azam that we think are worth a read: (this is not a comprehensive list. Do feel free to add to it):

1. Jinnah of Pakistan by Stanley Wolpert: Acknowledged by most experts as the best book on a rather complex man, elegantly narrated too. Pity Wolpert could not repeat the magic with his book on Nehru.

2. The Man Who Divided India: An Insight into Jinnah’s Leadership and its Aftermath by Rafiq Zakaria: Some might consider it to be a reflection of the “conventional view” of Jinnah in India, but the book is a must-read for its analysis of what made Jinnah such a charismatic figure.

3. Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin by Akbar S. Ahmed: A look at Jinnah and his larger impact on the Muslim world. Won high praise from the New York Times!

4. The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan by Ayesha Jalal:  Did Jinnah never actually want to create Pakistan and used the idea only as a bargaining chip before things got out of control? Jalal fleshes out the story well in this book that covers the 1937-47 time period.

5. Jinnah – Creator of Pakistan by Hector Bolitho: The official biography of Jinnah. Some might consider a tad less than objective but well worth reading nevertheless.

A new biography of former Pakistan cricket captain, Imran Khan, has claimed that he had an affair with Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Written by Christopher Sandford, the book more than hints at the link-up between arguably two of the most charismatic personalities in Pakistan’s histories. Sandford claims that his sources told him that Bhutto and Imran came together in 1975 when she  ain her second year at Lady Margaret Hall college. In an interview with the Daily Mail, he said, “In any event, it seems fairly clear that, for at least a month or two, the couple were close. There was a lot of giggling and blushing whenever they appeared together in public.”

Needless to say, the claim has seen all hell break loose with Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari, who was also Bhutto’s husband, believed to have been “profoundly grieved.” Many commentators are saying that there is little substance to the Khan-Bhutto link-up and that Sandford has based it on pure speculation and hearsay. Imran Khan, who is now a politician too,  has gone on record saying, “It is absolute nonsense about any sexual relationship or my mother and an arranged marriage. We were friends – that’s all.”

Will the book be banned in Pakistan? We are waiting for it in India!

It may have cost him his place in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and have been banned in Gujarat, but indications are that all the controversy has done the sales of Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence, no harm at all. Two leading booksellers in Delhi have told us that they have sold “hundreds of copies” and have ordered for more as they are running out of stock. The ultimate compliment to the book’s selling power came from one of the urchins who sells pirated books at Connaught Place – he said that “Jaswant ki kitaab” would be available next week for a third of its legal price! Wonder if the royalties will compensate for Singh’s hurt feelings, though.

New releases thoroughly ruled the roost in the hardcover fiction section of the New York TImes bestseller list, with no fewer than three titles in the top five. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Bad Moon Rising, the 28th (yes, 28th) book of the Dark Hunter paranormal series came in at number one, while another new book, That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo, which deals with the problems of a long-married couple, debuted at number two. Thomas Pynchon’s hardboiled private eye thriller Inherent Vice comes in at number five, and W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV’s latest instalment of the Badge of Honour series, The Traffickers, rounds off the newcomers by coming at number seven. In fact, half of the top ten would have been newcomers with a bit of luck – Christopher Reich’s new book Rules of Vengeance, comes in at number eleven.  Last week’s chart topper, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second part of the millennium trilogy, dropped to number four. Mind you, we expect it to go up again.

On the hardcover non-fiction front, there was only one notable newcomer, Ronald Kessler’s book on the agents who protect the US President, In The President’s Secret Service, which comes in at number three. The religious Our Lady of Guadalupe by Carl A. Anderson and Eduardo Chávez comes in at number eight, but is not expected to stay in the top ten for long. Michelle Malkin’s anti-Obama Culture of Corruption and Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, are at number one and two.

The success of the Harry Potter series has spawned a whole series of boy heroes from Artemis Fowl to Nathaniel (of the Bartimaeus Trilogy). Some have succeeded, some have not. Right on top of the former list Rick Riordan’s hero, Percy Jackson. Born of a human mother and the Greek ocean god, Poseidon, Percy is, as the book series proclaims, “half boy, half god, half hero.” Unable to stay in a regular school, he goes to Camp Half Blood (those who are half gods and half mortals are called half bloods) and is trained by, among other creatures, a Centaur. Of course, he has his friends, a satyr called Grover, a cyclops brother called Tyson, and Annabeth, who is the daughter of Athene. He also has a sword called Riptide which always comes back to him and also doubles as a fountain pen. Then there are  inter-God politics, with the Gods’ kids often getting drawn into them.

The fifth book in the series, Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian, pits Percy and his friends and indeed the entire Camp Half Blood against the Titans, who are attempting to destroy Mount Olympus and the entire Greek God order.
continue reading "Review: Half boy, half god, all entertainer!"

“Sachin to get first copy of book of Bhogle’s columns” blared the sub-heading on the front of today’s Indian Express (Delhi edition). The news item was about Harsha Bhogle’s new book Out of the Box – Watching the Game We Love, a compilation of his columns in the Indian Express, and how the first copy of the book would be presented to Sachin Tendulkar in Mumbai on Tuesday. A spot of self-promotion, perhaps. Unfortunately, it is wholly inaccurate. The book has been in the market for a month now, published by Penguin for what we think is a definitely high priced Rs 450. However, for some reason, cricket book publishers seem to think that cricket fans will simply digest whatever they are told. Just a few days ago, we were treated to the “launch” of Shashi Tharoor and Shahryar Khan’s book Shadows Across the Playing Field when the book had actually been in the stores for weeks.

In most cases, products are launched just prior to being released in the market (or in some cases, well before being released – to facilitate advance booking). However, cricket books seem to be following a different rule and are launched well after they hit the stands. Rationale, anyone?

As the country celebrates its 63rd independence day, we decided to sit down and shortlist our favourite books on the Indian independence movement. It was quite a task, given the number of tomes in contention, but in the end, we finally steeled our hearts and cut what seemed like a list running into dozens to a mere five. You may or may not agree with it – do drop us a line with your favourites if you do not – but we do think that each one of these five is worth a read:

1. Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre: All right, so the book is more about the period immediately preceding independence rather than the entire independence movement, but we are yet to come across a more readable book on pre-independence India. The portraits of key players such as Nehru, Gandhi, Mountbatten and Jinnah are amazingly well drawn up and while some might dismiss the book as being too lightweight to be of true historical value, we will vouch for its readability.

2. The Proudest Day: India’s Long Road to Independence by Anthony Read and David Fisher: It may have a few factual errors but this is perhaps one of the most entertaining books on the Indian independence movement, starting with the birth of the Indian National Congress in 1885 to the ultimate attainment of independence. It looks thick, but you will be through it before you know it.

3. Raj: The making and unmaking of British India by Lawrence James: Some consider this comprehensive work on British rule of India as being a bit too pro-Britain, but there can be no doubting Lawrence’s grasp of facts and his command of the language. We do not think there has been a more elegantly written book on the Indian freedom struggle. 

4. India: From Curzon to Nehru and After by Durga Dass: A journalist’s close up look at the events leading from Curzon’s partition of Bengal to the attainment of independence and after. Some feel that Dass has been too harsh on Nehru and too kind to Patel, but there can be no denying the importance of the book, especially for those who want to get an Indian perspective of the independence movement in the twentieth century.

5. India’s Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra: The book that every IAS exam giver knows about, is easily the best in terms of documentation of the Indian independence movement. Yes, it does veer towards the academic too often for reading comfort but if you are looking for facts, you will be hard pressed to get a better book.

It promises to be the biggest comic book event since Superman died more than a decade ago. One of the most popular teen comic characters of all times, Archie Andrews is set to marry long time sweetheart Veronica Lodge. The Archie comic series spans more than half a century and has largely revolved over the competition between Veronica and Betty to grab the attention of Archie Andrews, with side characters such as the villainous Reggie and and the ever-eating Jughead, all set in the utterly American town of Riverdale. 

Well, it seems that Archie is ready for matrimony and Veronica has beaten Betty to the “I do” stakes. Of course, not too many readers happy with Archie’s choice, with several rooting for the blonde Betty and hoping the wedding news is just a stunt to boot sales up. The marriage and the events leading up to it – we are really interested in how Archie convinced Veronica’s millionaire dad that he was not a wastrel – will span six comics and  is expected to hit comic speciality stands on August 19 and news stands on  September 1 with the first part, Archie Marries Veronica: The Proposal. We can see the queues forming up for the copies already, with Betty fans in tears. Just like the lady herself on the cover!