This Article is From Nov 22, 2010

Avid readers turn up 10-day Bangalore Book Fair

Bangalore: The eighth Bangalore Book Fair concluded on Sunday. And it left observers with the impression that the book business is flourishing, despite fears of the decline of the reading habit.

The 10-day fair at Palace Grounds is no measure of common literary taste, but if sale of books is anything to go by, there is little to fear that the publishing industry is in crisis.

The organisers of the fair, however, noticed that there were few movers-and-shakers visiting the Eighth Bangalore Book Fair. Among the least literary of Bangaloreans, it appears, are the ministers, the MPs and MLAs, as well as corporators. The only minister to have visited this year's book fair is law minister Suresh Kumar.

This year, the book fair drew a larger crowd than last year. There were many more stalls too. Nearly 2 lakh people are estimated to have visited the fair over 10 days this year.

Last year, the footfalls were estimated at 1.5 lakh. The tentative sales figure is `10 crore this year; last year, it was `8 crore. There were 340 stalls this year; last year, there were 322. "We had to refuse a score or more stalls due to shortage of space," says Lal M Prasad, member, managing committee of the Book Fair.

"The young are indeed reading more," says Balram Sadhwani, president of Bangalore Book Sellers and Publishers Association. "Teenagers today browse the Internet. Having vetted their appetite, they come to us with the reference and information for collecting even more material. Perhaps you could say that reading habits have changed, after a fashion. There are fewer people reading generally and widely, but more and more people reading with a limited interest. There is also greater utilitarianism, as the purpose is to scan what is available in a particular field. And purchasing power is higher among youth today, so they are more willing to buy books that are higher-priced."

"One perceivable difference between last year and this year was the heavy turnout of family crowds," says DS Raghuram, director of the fair. "Last year, we felt that the groups were mostly student ones. There is also a growing interest in English language learning tools.

Dictionaries and grammar books, as well as tips for writing sold briskly. Intriguingly, along with English, Kannada too is doing well. There were over 100 stalls for Kannada books alone. Academic books also routinely sell well during book fairs." He said.

But then, who is to say anything about trends? The Penguin stalls reported that there were many readers looking for Dickens, Shakespeare, and Wodehouse. Where literature is concerned, classical is contemporary.

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