Walking book fair gets warm welcome in state

They bought one truck and shaped it as book stall and have been touring cities and towns in India along with their walking book exhibition. Akshaya said, “Every cellphone and motor company have been setting up their branches in nook and corner, but such situation not witnessed pertaining to books.” He said that they decided to take the books to the doorstep of book lovers and started the walking book fair.

The duo planned to travel 10,000 km in 22 states in India including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Maharashtra. They completed Odisha and Chhattisgarh and touring Telangana at present. The books in the walking book fair including authors like Ruskin Bond, V S Naipaul, autobiography of Leonard Da Vinci, English version of SatyajitRay’s Aparajita, Smita Patil’s biography and story books and more.. They have quit their careers and are concentrating on encouraging people to read and make books available to them easily. Talking about the response from the people, Satabdi said, "Our initiative was lauded by many book lovers. We are getting appreciation from authors like Ruskin Bond for the initiative and it was is a highpoint in our life,".

The duo’s effort was received warmly by many people in Khammam and the management of New Era School offered their premises to host the book fair. The students can come and read whatever they wish during the three-day book fair commencing on December 21. Seating arrangements have been made for the kids to sit comfortably and read to their heart’s content.

Book lovers are selecting books to be purchased and straight away going to the staff with the information shared on Facebook. Writers and poets are promoting their books put up for sale as part of the Hyderabad Book exhibition and book releasing events on Facebook. The writers are sharing information about their book stall and inviting friends in the state and bordering state to visit their book stall and attend inauguration of their books. Book lovers coming from districts to the Hyderabad Book Fair will not find it difficult in finding their choice of books as they were getting information on posts shared about the book stall number, about book release function, discussion on new and old books.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle over telephone, president, Trust of Hyderabad Book Fair, Juluri Gowrishankar, said book lovers are following the posts regularly on Facebook by writers and poets about new books, book release and updating information useful for book lovers. He said even people from districts are coming to the book fair this time and social networking sites are also contributing to the popularity of the Hyderabad Book Fair.

K. Krishnakanth of Adilabad said he was planning to go to Hyderabad to visit the book fair and will purchase some books for which he was looking for a long time and added that he hoped that he will get old and classics in Telugu in the book fair. He came across books on Facebook posts available in the stalls.