The Muscat International Book Fair (MIBF) has been successful in raising awareness for books and has evoked good response from academics, intellectuals, and students of all ages and grades. With every passing year it registered more participation, more footfalls and display of more books for all ages as per their interest and requirement.
Publishers who are taking part in the book fair after a gap of two years are generally happy over their participation and support from the organisers. Publishers coming from other countries hailed Muscat as a good destination to sell books due to interest from parents and children and support from the institutions.
They also agreed that the Book Fair has been successful in inculcating reading habits among the children.
“I have been participating in the book fair for the last five years, excluding two years of Covid. I am happy to see the same lot of students and their parents coming to the fair. They purchased more books than they used to buy in previous years and agreed that too much exposure to screens has affected their eye health,” said Abdullah, who came from UAE to take part in the MIBF.
He appreciated the readers’ choice, as they kept abreast of the latest trend and were equally interested in books on history and culture.
I found some of the parents coming with their children and encouraging them to buy books from different sections. “They seem to be good collectors of books, as I got orders for a good number of books, mainly novels and culture. They have an urge to know about the world and look for authentic works even after scores of information available on the Internet. It shows their genuineness in reading and urge for right knowledge,” said another book seller.
There are 361,230 titles on display at the Book Fair with 715 publishing houses from 27 countries.
Faheem from Muscat claimed to have good demand for all sorts of fictions, children books and books on English, “there has been good demand for books on ‘how to learn English’ and ‘how to learn Arabic’ from Arabic speaking people and expatriates,” he said and added there has been good demand for books on photography and editing from young Omanis.
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