Salon International du Livre
As you may have seen, the International Book Far Mauritius (Salon International du Livre) started on Thursday 7th March until the 10th. As I didn’t have time during the week, I decided to go on the last day, Sunday. l was so shocked to see how many people there were; it was chaotic! I never usually go out on the weekends for this reason - there was so much pushing and shoving, no-one has any manners.
Well I was interested in looking for some children’s learning material and cooking books. To say I was disappointed is an understatement, there were hardly any books in English and the prices were ridiculous. It seemed that people just went there for a day out rather than being interested in books itself, some of the visitors were dressed like they were going to a wedding!
I did see some places that attracted a lot of attention such as Bookcourt and the Indian section had queues. A lot of the stands were empty too, I would’ve thought that the weekend would be the busiest but some people (owners) didn’t even bother to turn up and some of the deserted stands looked really exciting too.
I have always loved to read since I was a child and had piles and piles of books, I also went to the library every weekend, I want to pass this on to my children too but I find Mauritius very behind in what is available.
All over the world books are being phased out now with Kindle replacing them, iPad also has an app for reading books so I fear that the traditional book will soon no longer exist as nearly everyone I know has a Kindle or a tablet. I don’t agree with this as children are now having problems writing due to all the technology around; they no longer need to use a pen and paper. I wish Mauritius would sell affordable books for children in a variety of languages as well as there were so many in French and Kreol but not enough in English.
4 Replies
Got 20% discount on Malika Kallichurn's Manze Lontan there, was worth going. Wish they had more cook books though.
"so I fear that the traditional book will soon no longer exist as nearly everyone I know has a Kindle or a tablet"
I heard this statement back in 2000 when e-ink was just an experimental thing. That was when I was still doing my master's degree in publishing and content management. All the librarians attending the courses were on the war path because of the uprising of technology and new methods of consuming written information or books. For them, new age publishers and the Internet were killing "The Book". It was, and might still be, impossible to make them understand that books are following our technological trends and have integrated them quite easily. In no way did they commit suicide in doing that.
The statement was and is still absurd. Proof is that you're still going to a book fair in 2013.
It was much quieter during the week. Mostly children's books and I only found one book which I was searching for "Mauritians in the Second World War". The other book "Birds of the Mascarene" was not available but I found it at BookCourt Bagatelle.
To be frank I don't buy these general books. I find it a waste of time. What I have on the contrary, is old, rare book which does not have the blabla of the new books. And science books.
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