With an increased number of visitors in the Amar Ekushey Grantha Mela on Friday, a weekly holiday, the amount of sale of books augmented amid scores of questions raised by the conscious section of readers about the standard of publications.

This year the book fair has been witnessing a huge crowd since its launching. The number of visitors increases further on the holidays. The last Friday of the fair was no exception in this regard.

While visiting the country’s biggest book fair on its 23rd day, many visitors were seen checking out and buying books, while others were waiting for their favourite authors to come to the fair.

The fair venue wore a festive look in the morning with the presence of hundreds of children and it got overcrowded in the evening when more visitors arrived. Salespersons at different book stalls spent a hectic time dealing with the pressure of readers.

“Readers are exploring stalls every day and we have been doing good business since the second day of the fair. But it seems that the number of readers has increased significantly since the celebration of Pahela Falgun and Valentine’s Day and observance of Amar Ekushey,” Mowla Brothers’ salesperson Md Saifullah told the Daily Sun.

Book fair visitors, avid readers and authors said the number of new books has multiplied and so has the number of substandard books. Readers and writers were unhappy about this.

Checking out a number of books, Bilkis Jahan Bithi, a reader, said, “The book fair is flooded with new books. But if you are not selective or conscious about the quality you will be deceived as many books have spelling errors, printing mistakes and low quality contents.”

Authors also have shared similar notions and blamed lack of professionalism among publishers.

“Apart from a handful of publishing houses, none has its own editorial board. Therefore, the overall quality of books is not improving. Publishers must have their own editorial board,” fictionist Mostaq Ahmed told the Daily Sun.

“No author’s manuscript is published abroad without editing. Manuscripts may contain grammar, syntax, or spelling errors. These errors should be corrected before it is published in the form of a book,” he added.

There are allegations that a handful of publishers publish books taking money from the writers. According to many, such practice is also affecting the quality of publications.

Publisher of Agamee Prokashoni, Osman Gani, said quality publishers bring books with their own investment but at the same time it is an internationally recognised system that new authors publish books by giving publishers money.

“If you do not know an author and if you are not sure whether readers will accept his or her writing, what will you do? Therefore, a publisher does not want to invest in such cases. Besides, sometimes publishers bring books on a condition that writers will buy a certain number of copies of it,” he said.

The veteran publisher said they have an editorial board and they follow its suggestions while investing on a book, but most publishing houses do not invest on editing, proof reading and research.

He recommended collective efforts of authors, publishers, readers and Bangla Academy to curb the number of low quality books.

On the twenty third day of the book fair, a discussion programme titled “Remembrance: Akhtaruzzaman Elias” was held at the main stage of the book fair at 4:00 pm with Prof Khaliquzzaman Elias in the chair.

Mamun Hussain presented the keynote paper, while  Wasi Ahmed and Zafar Ahmed Rashed were present as discussants.

Author, traveller and ornithologist Inam Al Haque, fictionist Novera Hossain, poet Kushol Bhowmik and children’s writer Ahmed Jasim discussed their new books at the Lekhok Bolchi stage.

According to Bangla Academy, 197 new books, the highest in this year’s fair in a single day, hit the stalls on the day.

Today, on the twenty fourth day of the fair, two discussions on “Remembrance: Mohammad Rafiq” and “Remembrance: Khalek Bin Joynuddin” will be held on the main stage of the book fair at 4:00 pm.

Altaf Shahnewaz and Shujon Barua will present the keynote paper while Shamim Reza, Shoaib Jibran, Aslam Sunny and Amirul Islam will participate in the discussion to be presided over by Abul Momen.