The 10th edition of the Madurai Book Fair organised by the Booksellers and Publishers Association (BAPASI) was inaugurated at the Tamukkam grounds here on Friday evening.
Mayor V.V. Rajan Chellappa and District Collector L. Subramanian inaugurated the 10-day book fair, which has over 250 stalls this year. Speaking at the inaugural Mr. Subramanian encouraged persons to cultivate reading habit and encourage their children, in particular, to read.
Crowd began to throng the stalls after the inauguration at 7 p.m. and a majority of them were youngsters who had come to browse through Tamil books from many leading publications as well as families who had come to buy children’s books.
“There is always a huge draw for children’s books, educational CDs, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. As far as books for adults are concerned, self-help and motivational books are very popular year after year,” said R. Masilamani, owner of Ramka Books, which had set up a stall there.
S. Antony, a resident of the city said that there were an impressive number of books by Tamil authors to choose from. “A lot of us have begun to get interested in reading again and want to read modern writing and fiction in Tamil. The number of stalls selling Tamil books is much more than last year and we hope to buy a few good titles over the next few days,” he said.
Publishers and traders who had set up stalls said that they anticipated a huge rush over the weekend. During the course of next week, school and college students too will be brought to the fair in groups.
To attract the student crowd, many stalls selling books for competitive examinations had also been set up.
“Many school and college librarians wait for the book fair to do their annual purchasing and stock the institution library with the latest titles as well as educational books,” a salesperson said.
The book fair will be open till September 7 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. During the 9th edition of the book fair which took place in 2014, the organisers said that more than 2 lakh people had visited the fair and sales of Rs.3 crore had been registered.
