The famous annual book fair is coming to an end and bibliophiles in the city, not wanting to miss it this year, are making their way to the ongoing Vijayawada Book Festival at the PWD Grounds, to check out stalls stocked with books of different genres, to pick the titles that pique their interest.
There are stalls selling fiction, non-fiction, religious books, books that help in cracking competitive exams and educational DVDs among others. However, books in Telugu language rule the assortment.
Youngsters reading books in English are a disappointed lot as the number of stalls catering to them has decreased to a considerable extent. “This year they have books older people may like; there are varieties of motivation books in Telugu,” said Adarsh.V, an engineering student, as he was browsing at a stall.
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Smriti Arora, a second-year Journalism and Mass communication student, complained about most stalls having just Telugu books. She said second hand books were nowhere to be seen too, this time. “There are no stalls that sell second hand books,” she said. Those selling English books do not claim great sales either. A Bengaluru-based bookseller even said that a few visitors asked for Telugu version of some titles.
The total number of stalls has reduced to 300 from 380, this year. “We did it deliberately to avoid any possible duplication,” said a source associated with the event.
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Shrinking in size
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The organisers attribute the shrinking of the fair’s size to factors such as registered publishers not turning up and other confusions. They reportedly knew about the extension of the rose show happening at the venue, in the last minute. “We were given the ground only on December 28, leaving us little time to organise things,” said one of the organisers.
He added that most of them were busy taking care of the separate VIP gate arranged for the inaugural presided over by Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu along with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.