Jamshedpur: The decades-long annual event on the steel city's literary calendar is leaving bibliophiles cold.
Textbooks, board exam reference books and bestsellers are aplenty at the ongoing 33rd Jamshedpur Book Fair on Rabindra Bhavan campus, but not what avid book lovers had hoped for.
A book lover said he had not found Sapiens-A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari; City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence; Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling; The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo.
"I received a list of books from a friend that I was supposed to buy from the fair but I only found The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. It is better to get books delivered by e-commerce sites," said Dr Johar Banerjee, a dentist and a serious book lover.
So, what did he find at the fair? "Competitive exam books and test papers," Dr Banerjee smiled ruefully.
Entrepreneur Salil Dey, who also likes reading "meaningful stuff", said he had been unsuccessfully searching for books on start-ups and GST at the fair.
"I feel the book fair here in recent years has become more a hangout zone than a place to browse for and buy books," he said. "In any case, rare titles are easily available online, I fear these events will gradually wane," said the entrepreneur scouting for books such as Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey and The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest Growing Startups from their Founding Entrepreneurs by David S. Kidder.
Publishers at the book fair admitted their stocks were driven by mass demand. "Question paper compilations for board exams, bestsellers and books on art and craft sell like hotcakes," said a publisher who declined being named.
"Offbeat books have few takers. Bigger publishing houses like Penguin, Random House, Harper Collins don't come to cities like Jamshedpur as they won't be able to recover their costs," said Sachin Gupta from Swastik Books, Calcutta.
Tanmay Bhattacharjee of Peregreen Publishers and Distributors too observed, "Youngsters mostly want textbooks, reference books and books by Chetan Bhagat or Amish," he said.
