Blore Book Festival gathers momentum, crowds throng

Blore Book Festival gathers momentum, crowds throng
DH News Service, Bangalore:
The Bangalore Book Festival, which kicked off with much fanfare at the Palace Grounds here on Saturday, is getting bigger.


Following the 2,000-odd visitors on the first day, about 30,000 thronged the sprawling fair venue on Sunday, and for good reason: The ten-day annual fair offered a huge variety of books with discounted prices, all under one roof.

A record 15 lakh books were sold on the first day, according to the event co-ordinator Harindra Savanur. Sponsored by Deccan Herald and jointly organised by the Bangalore Book sellers and Publishers Association, Klub Class and Kannada Book Authority, the mega fair had books ranging from Re 1 to Rs 7,000. Bibliophiles, young and old, queued up to visit the stalls, browse through the collections on offer, and of course make big purchases.
Variety

Spread for all and sundry to browse and buy were books on management and computer software, chemistry and animal behaviour, politics and spirituality. Children had their usual choices, the story books and quiz collections. Books on general knowledge and sciences only added to the fantastic range.

As if the variety was not enough, there were stalls such as this Rare Book Shop selling old and new books for children and young enthusiasts at a throwaway price. The price ranged from Rs 10 to Rs 400 but many interesting books were sold at Rs 40.

The other crowd-pulling stalls were Bhagya Lakshmi Prakashana, ISKCON stall and Sahitya Prakashana. The noticeable was Chowkhamba Sanskrit Pratisthan from Benaras where people thronged in great numbers. The stall had books starting from Re 1 to Rs 7,000. Its proprietor Pt R Mishra was happy with the response.
“Every year I come here all the way from Benaras. Here I find good readers, who have taste for ancient Sanskrit books. We have a large range of books on Tantra, Yoga, Hindu epics, Ayurveda and Vedic Mathematics in Sanskrit,” said Mishra.

A total of 288 stalls displayed a range of books including technical, non-technical, frictional, novels and children books in Kannada, English, Hindi, Tamil, Bangali, Oriya and Urdu languages.

Book stall keeper of the IBH Prakashana, Sanjay Adiga said many people are asking for Kannada books like that of Shivram Karanth’s. He said that Goroor Ramaswamy Iyengar’s books and L K Advani's Nanna Desha - Nanna Jeevana are hot selling- 50 copies on the first day.

Anuradha, a housewife, who came asking for T P Kailasam's Bandawalavillada Badai, said the book fair is really good and she can get any book of her choice.

S K Murugan from Natham Geetham Books, who is from Chennai selling Tamil books, said he has around one thousand titles and has sold up to 50 copies on the first day. He said he was very happy with the response he has got till now.

The organisers had fixed an entry fee of Rs 20 with free entry for children below 12 years. School and college students could enter free showing their ID cards.

Minister all praise

Home Minister Dr V S Acharya was all praise for the organisers of the book fair. “Grey’s Anatomy, a book I had to get from abroad, when I was a student, is now available at a throwaway price in one of the stalls here,” the minister said.

He suggested after inaugurating the fair on Friday that the organisers should have gifted him books in place of garlanding him. That could have been a great honour for him.