Interliber 2014

For one day only I decided to leave my countryside exile and travel to town, in order to visit this year's annual book fair Interliber.
Its always organised at this time of the year and last time I also happened to be in Croatia & it was very enjoyable experience. So off I went, sleeping in a bus and later walking trough the streets of Zagreb to kill the time until evening meeting with friends - who all work and have only just a tiny bit of free time for such frivolities, but we all loved it and shared the thrill of browsing countless book stalls.

Impressions;
It wasn't all new - I saw a lot of same titles that I have already saw last year, which is probably inevitable because its all about publishers.
Since people are constantly brainwashed into fear of poverty and economical crisis, it seems that this year they were more looking and less buying although prices were mostly more than acceptable.Hardback editions naturally cost more, if you wait just a little bit, same titles will turn up in paperback - as everywhere in the world.
Tons of colourful "girl's novels" meant for female audience curious about lives of royalty, tragic queens and what not - I noted slight overkill of Philippa Gregory-kind of novels which seems a bit tired to me. Another market were cookbooks, astrology and self-help, all of them far too numerous for me to actually pay attention, instead of making it exclusive such abundance actually kills my interest immediately. One thing that annoyed me - but I understand this was all about promotion about publishers - is the fact that if suddenly you remember a certain title, there is no way you can find it because a) who knows is it translated into Croatian, b) you must know the publisher otherwise its really like searching for a needle in a haystack. I wanted to give my friend a book by Bill Bryson (anything by him!) but couldn't find it since I don't know the publisher. OK forget about Bill Bryson. I also noted a lots of novels - my friends here are mostly reading novels - and it didn't really attract me because in the meantime I kind of moved away from fiction towards either non-fiction or biographies, most of the books that really left strong impression on me recently were either history or some witty non-fiction book with lots of funny informations.

As always, by far the most enjoyable stalls were not new titles but second-hand bookshops offering their worn-out covers, those were really my favourites. Here I found the titles that I used to read decades ago when I was growing up and these are certified gold, truly well-read and proved classics I knew. Withe the biggest pleasure I bought wonderful collection of interviews called "Interview With History" by Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, this is something I wanted to re-read for a long time and it costed almost nothing, being old book from 1970s. (I would paid three times more). It has her interviews with people like Henry Kissinger, Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, Willy Brandt and Sirimavo Bandaranaike - all of them famous and great politicians in their time.

Another second-hand purchase was something that I still remember from decades ago, "The Flounder" by Günter Grass - a novel!_- but if I remember correctly a excellent one, about never-ending push and pull between men and women, with a fish in the between as a symbol of reason (kind of variation of fisherman and his wife story). Again, it cost me nothing. I surprised myself with purchase of book of poetry from 1885 by Croatian poet Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević ("Bugarkinje") who is kind of name from schoolbooks but never read for pleasure, read about him the day earlier and found it strange coincidence that his book was looking at me so took it as a sign. There were also few trivial-but-fun titles that I bought as a presents for my undemanding friends and those I will probably read first myself. The whole evening was very pleasant, with focus more on socialising than book browsing, which was fine by me but I only wish I had more time to explore non-fiction sections. On the other hand, what's the point of piling unread books around me.