New Delhi, Feb. 7 -- At a literary festival, it's natural to talk about reviews. Recently at the Kolkata Literary Meet, Pulitzer winner Jhumpa Lahiri and Booker winner Kiran Desai were sharing the stage for the first time. The moderator, Anindita Ghose, brought up the touchy subject of bad reviews. Lahiri confessed that an early bad review caused her to break down in tears on the couch in her husband's office. Desai said because she lived and worked alone, she had no one to turn to after a stinker of a review. "I would just be by myself, dealing with it," she said. The consensus seemed to be to avoid reading reviews in general for one's peace of mind.

But sometimes a persistent reviewer really wants you to know what they thought of your ...