A girl flips through a home décor book at the fair in Gandhi Maidan on Sunday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, March 27: Rishab, a 17-year-old student, is not worried about his career, like his friends. Reason: he is confident he will be a millionaire, courtesy Mircosoft co-founder and one of the richest men in the world Bill Gates, whose biography he is reading these days.

Aspiring millionaires can get Gates’s biography, as well as the life story of our very own Dhirubhai Ambani at the National Book Fair, Patna, organised by the National Book Trust of India in association with the state government, at Gandhi Maidan.

Book lovers, young and old, are making a beeline for the fair to find their favourite books — not only biographies but also all other subjects under the sun.

“The biography of Bill Gates has been selling as fast as the Microsoft software. I have sold 40 copies of it in five days. Though it is the month end, young buyers are digging deep into their pockets to buy this book,” Surendra Singh, the owner of Manoj Publication, told The Telegraph.

The second bestseller is Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography My Experiments with Truth. Other favourites are the biographies of Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the Reliance group and Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group. Maxim Gorky and former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s biographies have also been selling well.

So is Adolf Hitler’s controversial Mein Kampf that the German dictator wrote in jail.

As far as controversial books are concerned, Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita, which inspired the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Nishabd, has also been flying off the shelves, said a source.

“Readers want to know what made the books controversial. That has boosted the sales,” said Singh.

He added that other publishers too have shown interest in Nabakov’s classic and have borrowed copies from Singh.

M.N. Bhagat from BBC Design Book House, Mumbai, at stall number 46, has been treating visitors to a surprise: each book in the stall deals with one aspect of home décor. Interior and exterior design, architecture, landscape, furnishing, textile graphics, creative and fine arts and advertising — all find a place of pride on the shelves of the bookstall. Visitors can glance through or pick up books on houses in Singapore, Japan, Germany or Italy.

“You can manage a world-class home décor by reading these books, most of which are foreign publications. The books are a little expensive — most are priced between Rs 1,000 and Rs 8,000. But they provide something exclusive to the reader,” said Bhagat.

He added: “People are now enquiring about these books. Most of them have never seen such material. I am sure people will come back for more.”

“I was really surprised to see a stall dealing with only home décor. It is unusual in a city like Patna,” said Bangalore-based schoolteacher Nidhi Sinha, who has come home to Patna for her holidays. She said such books were earlier available only in Delhi or Bangalore.

Books on religious subjects too are very popular with the readers. Many are buying the Vedas and the Upanishads to present as gifts.