Kaavya: Fully booked

Calcutta, April 29: Nothing sells quite like a scandal, and with books at the centre of some recent storms, bookstores in the city are doing brisk business.

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, Kaavya Vishwanathan’s plagiarism-tainted book, might have been pulled off the shelves by publisher Little, Brown. But the 18-year-old Indian-American Harvard student can take heart ? the Calcutta story is different.

After The Da Vinci Code ? which won a plagiarism case slapped against it ? Opal is drawing buyers in hordes.

“There really was not that much excitement about the book before. Now that the plagiarism scandal has broken out, I have had calls all morning from people requesting a copy of the book, but there is nothing we can do because we don’t have any more copies,” said Rajiv Chowdhry of Oxford Bookstore.

Kaavya ? who bagged a record $500,000 advance for her debut novel ? had admitted to “internalising” some passages from her favourite author’s book, but Megan McCafferty remained unmoved by the apology.

With Opal at number two on Metro’s top 10 list for the week, there’s little doubt which book Calcuttans are making a beeline for.

“We have received no orders from the publishers or distributors to stop selling the book,” said Gautam Jatia, CEO of Landmark. “There has definitely been a surge of interest since the scandal broke out. We’ve sold six copies in the last few days, mostly to teenagers.”

Crossword Bookstore has seen a similar rush for the book.

Oxford Bookstore received only three initial copies of Opal from its distributor, and they were snapped up before the scandal. Now, there are a flood of calls, but no books.