It’s quite a fair deal

Head to the World Book Fair to pick exciting books from across the world.

Head to Pragati Maidan for the 19th World Book Fair. Spread over nine halls, the fair showcases 35 foreign publishers from 15 countries. There are books on subjects ranging from Scientology to seismic science. For those yet undecided about what the internet has to offer book lovers, there are two stalls — of Flipkart.com and Friends of Books — of interest. At Flipkart.com’s stall, staffers help you log on to the website, create an id and order a book. At the other stall, while you can buy books, you can also enroll for membership at the online library that home-delivers books.

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The stall of the Delhi

Bible Institute has a giant torch that, says Isaac Shaw, the executive director, “is themed around the Commonwealth Games”. The stall has the Bible in over 20 languages, a Bible pop quiz for visitors and a book where people are asked to write out verses from the Bible in any language by hand, which they promise to publish later.

If you’re looking for pot-boilers, head to the Hachette India stall, a giant space done up like a cool book store. Another large exhibitor is Penguin India, which has a collection of titles you’d be hard pressed to find in Delhi bookstores.

Some interesting books spotted include a 1961 edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses at the Sagar Book Depot stall (Hall No. 5); A Collection of Cartoons from The New Yorker at the Vadehra Art Gallery Bookstore (Hall No. 4); Times New Roman & Countrymen at Chennai-based Blaft publishers’ stall (Hall No. 4) and A Calmer You, a compilation of Sonal Kalra’s HT City columns, at the Wisdom Tree publishers’ stall (Hall No. 1).

A note of caution: don’t go expecting any great discounts.