The Colombo International Book Fair 2010

As usual in every year, Colomobo International Book Fair 2010 was held in September in this year too. Being an enthusiastic reader I also waiting till September to participate this grand event. This books fair provides an opportunity to buy every book with discount which causes to attract wide range of readers from little children to adults. It doesn't matter what kind of job you are doing, there is any kind of book to anyone of any age group. Thus thousands normally visit there and it is stated that this time more than a million visited. This create win - win situation to both readers and publishers. Publishers can sell more books where as readers can buy books at dicounted prices. Even some visited there to have a fun. One of my friend told me that although he visited there he couldn't find any suitable book for him ???????? However I visited there twice. ( There was a break down of blogging as I had lot of books to be read and I wish to sorry for my beloved readers.)

However there were some books which were highly demanded. One of them is Sinhala translation of "Harry Potter and the order of phoenix". (I wish to talk about that book in another blog. So I don't write more details about it now).

Buddhist Books are also highly demanded and there were several stalls which only includes Buddhist Books. Most intteresting fact I noticed is there many buyers who are in their twenties or thirties.

Psychological books were also prefered choice of many readers and it is notable thing that most youth bought Psychological books.

And there was a trend to buy which were nominated to "Swarna Pusthaka" awards. When I was selecting books one lady came and bought "Kandak Sema" not because of quality of story in the book but because that it was nominated.

There few facters which can be noted in the Book Fair 2010. First one is higher cost of books. For example Sinhala translation of "Harry Potter and the order of phoenix" was cost Rs. 1200. 00. This is huge cost and normally anyone think twice before spending such big money for one book if it was not a recommeded text book. Sinhala fictions were non second to translations. Late auther T. B. Ilangarathne's books like "Lasada", "Amba Yaluwo" and etc cost around Rs. 300. That was an only example and prices of books are high specially books that were published by reputed publishers.

Another good thing was that no stalls in upstairs of BMICH due to on going repairs of the building. In previous occasions many visiters were tired going up and down with huge bags. So that many visiters were discourage to go stalls which were situated oustside main hall of BMICH. Unlike previous times this time visiters visited many stalls. However the size of stalls is also questionable. Many stalls were full with crowd and it was not easy task to select books.
Sometimes visiters waited out of particular stalls till crowd is unloaded. The congestion made many problems and it was hard to select books that suit redears' preferance. Long queues at counters were normal seen and I must state that this situation really discourage visiters. It is not either secret or unexpected thing that large number of visited book fair every years. So that organizers must be ready to welcome large number of visiters in this years too specially under the situation of ending long ran conflict. On that side visiters were facilitated with least convenience. However it is a must to draw the attention of the organizers of this exhibition to this problem and I wish thta we would not have to face this problem is book fair 2011.
However we enjoy a lot in Book Fair 2010 which brought us many experiences and it would be nice experience to anyone who visited there. Finally I wish to state that although there were small problems the Colombo International Book Fair 2010 was very successful grand event and Book Fair 2011 would be a better one.