COIMBATORE: The smell of books at the fair takes me back at once to my childhood when I visited libraries and sat for hours, with my head buried in books. Fatty from Five Find-Outers , talking ghosts from Potter land, the naughty girls of Malory Towers and good-natured people of Ruskin Bond’s universe — all my childhood favourites are here.
There are also writings of people who inspire me, classics that shifted my world view and modern fiction that chisels my craft as a writer! It is indeed a buffet for the book lover at the Coimbatore Book Festival 2015, organised by the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association along with Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India. I want to buy so much, but there is only so much my bag can hold.
It is so refreshing to see people, wandering in a leisurely way, pausing occasionally to flip through books. Children crowd around mythology books, comics and Harry Potter series, which are available for a steal. Adithya, a std. VIII student, is looking for history books. “I love history and hate maths. I find the stories of kings inspiring,” he smiles. He has his eye on a colourful illustrated version of the Mahabharatha , on sale at Omni Books.
The 13-year-old also loves R.K. Narayan and is a fan of his Malgudi Days , which he says reminds him of his friends in school.
The best thing about a book fair is you bump into rare books and new authors. Grandma’s Bag of Stories Kate Long is a new friend I made in this book voyage. Her Swallowing grandmother, priced at Rs.100, tells the rib-tickling tale about the relationship between an orphaned kid and her horrible ungrateful grandmother!
I also come across unheard works of familiar authors. For instance, I never knew Ruskin Bond wrote a book called Friends in Small Places . The collection brings together those who have left a lasting impression on the writer, along with a host of other characters drawn from his other stories. The book leaps into my jhola .
One section of the hall has a few stalls selling second-handbooks, with worn edges and sentences underlined in blue ink. These have travelled all the way from Bangalore. Detective fiction, pulp novels and young adult fiction are available at Rs. 100-150. Some are all-time favourites that I do not mind rereading, especially, Stieg Larsson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series. “The best thing about this fair is that you can actually compare prices and settle on which stall gets you the better deal,” says Raghupathy, a retired conservator of forest who has come with his daughter. He is here to find a Tamil-to-English dictionary. According to him, one should compare rates and make the right choice. Some of the stalls here even sell Cambridge dictionaries at half their prices.
Bestsellers, children’s books, and funny bedtime stories for kids are on sale at Shree Balaji Book Seller and Distributor. And, you might bump into some classic writers if you comb through these books! For instance, among the racy thrillers of John Grisham and David Baldacci, I happened to find a book of verse called Sixteenth Century Poetry Book , which features Shakespeare, Thomas Campton and Queen Elizabeth!
“It is lovely to see the book fair tradition back in the city,” says Chitra Rajendran, a teacher. “This is a feast for me, especially when the book fair culture is fading from our cities. It brings all the books under one umbrella.” She says ideally one should make more than one visit to a book fair to get to know the best in the collection. “I belong to the old generation. We do not know how long these books are going to be around, with the entry of e-books and audio books. We should cling onto this culture and never let it die.”
(The book fair is on till August 23 at Codissia, Avanashi Road)
