I stepped out into the Carlton's tea garden area, an area I have always thought was beautiful, where there were books on display. There were stalls to provide snacks, and of course tea (unfortunately I didn't have any). The books seemed colourful, but I'm talking about their covers. While there were a number of subjects and sections, there just wasn't enough... not to warrant the word 'festival'. A festival in my view should be open to all sorts of people, organisations and groups to display their knowledge and their wares. Regardless of what the knowledge and the wares are. Instead, there were a select few genres and some unnecessarily expensive hardback books with pictures celebrating the history of our people in some way or form.
I do not believe books should be expensive, and am highly amazed at the prices of books in relation to what that sort of money could buy here. I understand that if you translate Western currency to Pakistani money, that it will seem high, but surely a book can't cost as much four meals in a moderately-high priced restaurant in Zam-Zama?
Other issues:
Karen Armstrong wasn't there, either, but she will be there tomorrow, or so I was told.
The entire thing seemed to be based on selling books at what I'm pretty sure is a marked up price of standard Liberty Books' prices.
I don't think it was that much fun, nor informative. I didn't feel welcome to take part in anything, again the layout was a little unprepared in my opinion. By the time I'd made a couple of rounds, I was done and was just exhausted and wanted to go home.
That said, I am glad that there are literature festivals, and that there is some sort of promotion of reading. It is unfortunate that our youth doesn't enjoy reading enough. I think it has something to do with our schooling techniques. More on that later.
