Book-ed

If you are a bibliophile in Pune and you haven't been to the Pune Book Fair yet, today is your last chance to do so. The 11th edition of the Pune Book Fair opened on November 7 at Ganesh Kala Krida Manch in the city amidst much fanfare. Inaugurated by Nagnath Kottapalle, president, Marathi Sahitya Sammelan, the book fair has displays by leading publishers, organisers and service providers. Books on subjects like technology, management, law, literature and religion, among others, are also available at the venue.

With over 70 stalls and more than 70,000 titles, the Pune Book Fair offers a variety of books for the readers. Among the interesting ones are the stalls that sell used books. Priced anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 100, fiction titles like novels by Jeffrey Archer, Dan Brown and various self-help books like the Chicken Soup series are a steal. If you rummage through the piles for long enough, you might just end up getting a rare travel book published in the '40s. Stalls by the Sahitya Akademi and the Poona Blind Men's Association are worth a visit.

Among the other interesting stalls is the one by National Film Archives of India. Celebrating Indian cinema's centenary year, they have displayed posters of classics in Indian film industry -- starting from the silent era, to the latter ones, like the Academy award-winning film Slumdog Millionare. They are also selling reprints of the posters for popular films like Mughal-e-azam, Shri 420 and Sholay. If you are looking for a particularly rare film poster, you can ask nicely and they just might hunt one down from the wide collection of posters in the form of a soft-copy.

Among other activities in the buzzing fair, lectures on topics like "Anandayatri Pu La Deshpande" and an interview with MLA Harshawardhan Patil had also been arranged for the readers' benefit at Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad.

(Pune Book Fair will be open today from 11 am to 9 pm at Ganesh Kala Krida Manch)