Book Festival set to draw large crowds
Walk for Books, a book-lovers’ walkathon, would be organised on January 4 from Gandhi Nagar Press Club to Swaraj Maidan
Vijayawada: After a long gap, the 32nd Vijayawada Book Festival is helping bibliophiles to get books of their choice and tastes. The mood is upbeat as the Covid spread has vastly reduced.
Walk for Books, a book-lovers’ walkathon, would be organised on January 4 from Gandhi Nagar Press Club to Swaraj Maidan.
The Vijayawada Book Festival Society (VBFS) organises the book festival but it did not take place last year due to the pandemic.
The Covid scenario has improved also as 98.96 per cent of the public was administered Covid vaccine’s first dose in AP and 71.76 per cent of the people got their second dose. There was cent per cent vaccinations among targeted groups in Nellore, Vizianagaram, Prakasam, Anantapur, West Godavari, Kurnool and Chittoor districts.
The recovery rate is 99.21 per cent and the mortality rate dropped to 0.7 per cent in the state for the past few weeks. Book lovers including students who were forced to remain indoors due to the Covid threat are happy with the changed scenario and planning to visit the book festival at Swarajya Maidan.
The book festival will continue till January 11 lakhs of books are on display. All the leading publishing houses in the country have set up stalls, totally numbering 200.
Leading Telugu and English book publishers as also government printing and publishing houses are participating in the festival with large array of books. The election commission, tribal welfare society, SCERT and several government agencies as also famous publications have their stalls.
Literary events and career talks will be part of the fair. New books would be launched at the literary dais every day, competitions would be held in quiz and other events while career talks would be hosted for children and youth. Cultural activities would also be organised within the premises and literary meetings would be conducted from the Kalipatnam Rama Rao Sahitya Vedika.
On January 3, Amma Nudi: The Udyoga Upadhi Avakasalu programme will be held.
There will be the Walk for Books, a book-lovers’ walkathon on January 4 from Gandhi Nagar Press Club to Swaraj Maidan. Chief electoral officer Vijayanand will flag off the Walkathon in which AP Telugu-Sanskrit Academy chairperson Nandamuri Lakshmiparvathi, secretary Srinivas Rao, famous writers Vasireddy Navin, Siva Reddy, Vadrevuveera Lakshmi and others will participate.