Zarina Patel

It is an old saying that books are our best friends. Just as food is a necessity for body, reading is nourishment for mind and soul. Starting from preschool age, it is a lifelong skill to get a hold of confidence, sharpness, and grooming socio-cultural abilities.

These days, the fast advancement of technology makes it easy to get information faster than ever. Availability of e-books, blogs, articles and reviews have more attractions than printed books.

However, research suggests that reading from a book is completely different from reading from a screen. You will memorize more through reading a book, since your brain connects the information to their position within the book and the page. Your hands help in this process, since you hold the book and that helps indicating how far along you are in your reading.

Book fairs play a great role in promoting the reading habits of people of all age groups. The literary events have been around for as long as there been a publishing industry. Every year different organizations across the world work with book publishers and sellers to organize book fair and exhibitions. London, Frankfort, Hong Kong, and Arab Emirates are well known for global book fairs. The purpose of these exhibitions is to encourage book reading and spread words of knowledge. These events promote a culture of reading and writing through developing a special interactive partnership between readers, writers, and publishers.

Importance of book fair:

It is a fact that book fairs provoke our interest in reading books. A book fair is like a feast of books for the avid book readers. To get your hands on the best books and publications from across the globe no place is better than a book fair. One can easily select his favorite books from a huge collection of novels, short stories, poems, maps, arts, dictionaries, cookbooks, encyclopedias, etc.

Book fairs are the most loved and best-known venues for motivating kids to read more. There is really no better way to get kids reading than presenting them with books and letting them choose what most appeals to them. In addition, there is no better way to do that than at a book fair. The event plays an important role in developing the habit of reading books among people from all occupation. It is a treasure in the hands of reader to spread culture, education, and knowledge. It changes our outlook on life and widens our domain of learning.

Book fairs and exhibitions are known as “community-centered and consumer events”. Well-organized book fairs play a vital role in promoting reading habits. They allow publishers, agents, distributors, and retailers to meet and do business. They draw media and public attention to the book industry.

For authors and publishing professionals, book fairs and festivals are great opportunities to bring new books to a variety of readers, to help grow writers’ fan base, and to increase book promotion and sales. According to a research, in an age where much business is conducted online, book fairs remain highly valued by publishers. This is likely due to the nature of publishing as a business, particularly in the way in which rights sales are conducted, where success is built largely via personal relationships. Book fairs represent the best (often only) opportunity for trade professionals to meet and connect.

Such events exhibit positive impact on the academic achievement of the students. Students can perform better during examination by reading various books. The mind of the students broadened and they have better grasp over the subject and they started to think in a new dimension altogether.

The academic magazines and periodicals available at the fair keep the students aware of the latest development around the world and promote building a knowledge-driven community for the future.

A book fair plays a great role in the life of a student. It is a place where vast collections of academic books, storybooks, and children encyclopedia are displayed for students. These books are made available to the students to increase their knowledge and understanding on various subjects.

The international book fair in Karachi: This book fair aims to promote literary culture in the cosmopolitan city of Karachi it has been organized by Pakistan publisher’s and booksellers association every year since 2005. A big number of book-lovers got opportunity to get quality literature from a vast collection of books from more than 250 publishers from Pakistan, as well as, 15 international publishers from Turkey, Singapore, Britain, and India, through this fair.

It was a largest 5-day long event and has provided a platform where publishers, booksellers, and writers exhibit their latest and classic publications. There were about 300 stalls; each had books of different categories. Books in each stall were arranged in an orderly manner in shelves and on long tables. The guides/shopkeepers were helping visitors to know more about the books.

Each stall had a wide range of books and magazines. They were offering heavy discount while some other had gift schemes. They displayed children’s books, subject-oriented books, books on language and literature, books on science and technology, books on software and hardware, banking and finance, management and accounting, books on analog and medicine, books on law and income, books on cookery, health, beauty and fitness religious books and dictionaries.

Book lovers found many rare and unknown books here. Young girls showed special interest in buying romantic, contemparory and classic Urdu novels. While, students rushed at the books of practicing English grammar. Thousands of people visited the fair, buy books, and place order for more books. The organizers claimed that sell of books were higher than the previous year.

Students of more than 100 schools, colleges, and universities also browse and bought their favorite books. They took keen interest in books and termed it useful for their knowledge.