Tuesday 11 November 2014

Sharjah Book Fair - For the love of the written word!

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.
–Oscar Wilde

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.
– Marcel Proust

This week the love of books took us to a place which we have been frequenting for the past two years, 'The Sharjah Book fair - 33rd edition- 4th biggest book fair' in the world, being held at the Sharjah Expo Centre. Over this weekend, the place was jam-packed with the book-lover crowd, especially the Indian pavilion at Hall 5. So many publishers and so many authors.


Sharjah book fair 2014
Sharjah Book fair 2014... The roads to the venue were choked


Sharjah book fair 2014
Indian pavilion... Huge collection of books


Sharjah book fair 2014
Books, books and more books... everything from cooking, kids, medical, technical and novels.

Sharjah book fair 2014


Navigating ourselves through the crowd, we managed to catch glimpses of some activities that were held. Lakshmi Nair, a famous Malayali cook and TV host had a cookery show on. She has authored a book of recipes too. Among many other notable books, I found the recent Chetan Bhagat's HALF-GIRLFRIEND and SACHIN TENDULKAR's biography.

Sharjah book fair 2014
A glimpse of Lakshmi Nair's cookery show

The event runs from 5- 15 th of November and has many activities. DAN BROWN, SHASHI THAROOR and MANJU WARRIER were many of the authors that are going to grace the fair along with so many others from the arab world.

The children have loads to do, see and of course buy too. The collection of books for the children was so huge, and many of the stalls had educational toys and much more. Plenty of fun to keep the little ones happy - bouncy castle, caricature, arts workshops, face painting and so much more. We went around the heavily crowded place looking for books that would catch our imagination and bought a few stuff. The little one had her own choice of what she wanted and picked up so many herself. Now these books might keep us busy for some time:).

Educational toys

Live caricature

Wood craft

What our daughter picked up!!


We are definitely going back on a week day , to escape the crowds and savor the place once more. Sometimes books can just amaze you without you even turning a page. We found a book titled on Farz's name. How cool is that:)

Delighted !!


Here's the link to the Sharjah Book Fair Official website.

http://www.sharjahbookfair.com/default.aspx

Be ready to brave the crowds for the love of the written word.

Cheers
ZAIN & FARZ

2 comments:

  1. This is lovely.. I missed this..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Its a great show, Patricia.
    The oldest and biggest book fair in the middle east. Runs every year, drawing mammoth crowds.

    Will keep you posted when the 2015 one starts.
    Have a great day!

    ReplyDelete