36 To Buy a Book at the Book Fair

To buy a book at the book fair? Actually the fair is first and foremost a meeting place for authors, editors and publishers – especially publishers. At a fair one mingles with literary personalities and buys rights to Israeli books for distribution in the world, and rights to books from abroad for distribution in Israel. The book fair is the place to see and be impressed. It is possible to buy books in book stores. Did I say that it is possible? Not really.

Enter a typical book store in the city or shopping mall and what books are on sale there? Books that were published in the past few months; especially those on best seller lists, and most of all books that are advertised two minutes before the news on the radio, as if they were the discovery of the century in world literature. Poetry books? Only a few dozen. Reference books? Again, only those that were published recently and promoted aggressively and a very limited selection of other books, primarily books likely to interest students and, of course, cook books, books on travel, leisure and so on – in short, boring.

That is the reason why I am attracted to book fairs; the book fair in Jerusalem and the Hebrew Book Week in Tel Aviv. During book week all the publishers empty their warehouses and display all their books to the public. Finally it is possible to feast one's eyes on a vast supply of books that all year were the object of endless pursuit. Although the Jerusalem book fair is very small it is possible to see there, for example, the books of "Even Choshen" publishing house, the beautiful and exclusive bibliophile editions. And a few more surprises.

But in Jerusalem I try to concentrate on foreign books that I will not see during the Hebrew Book Week. And because I'm not a regular at the universities books stores, I'm attracted to the stands that present alas, a poor variety of them, but still much more than I can see in almost all of the bookstores in Israel.

What books did I buy at the fair? I bought two books. One: a "Dictionary of Symbols" published by Penguin. It contains l200 crowded pages of interpretations of symbols from various world cultures, religions, nations and continents (five pages are devoted to the word "black" and fourteen to the word "snake"). It is not a new book but it is an important and helpful aid and makes for fascinating reading. Two: an edition of Shakespeare's sonnets published by Cambridge with extensive and copious explanations – in all 150 pages. Even if I seriously study only two sonnets, the purchase will have been worthwhile.