Busy Book Times August 07 2015

It always happens this way.

Have you noticed?

Feast or famine.
I suppose that is putting it too strongly.
Feast or diet .
Champagne or water.
But I digress....

After months of planning the South African Book fair was held at the Turbine Hall this past weekend.

The fair was held in conjunction with the Mail and Guardian literary festival.

Three days of books, talks, authors, more books, publishers
and even more books.

It was a Bibliomaniac's dream come true
I did not want to leave.

BUT

That was only part of the feast
At the very same time Limmud were holding their annual conference.
Three days of round the clock talks
Three days of good food (It is a Jewish event ... food is important)
Three days of inspirational speakers and visiting academics.

And so it happened that I left the Turbine Hall and drove across town to the Indaba hotel to attend the conference on the Sunday.

I had some idea of what to expect.
We were the official booksellers and had brought in a number of titles that visiting speakers had penned  from overseas.

What I didn't expect was the electric atmosphere and excitement of the attendees at the conference.

In past years we have had time to chat to our customers while they browse our rather impressive range of Judaica.

Not this time.

Either they were living on energy drinks (unlikely ... are they even kosher?)
or they were all inspired by the various discussions they attended.

As each session ended we were bombarded by people wanting to buy the speaker's books.
And then they ran off terrified that they may miss 5 minutes of the next talk.

I managed to attend the eminent  Roger Ballen's talk about how he takes the photographs he does and how his art has changed over time.

This was held at 1 o'clock.

LUNCHTIME

And the room was full.

Which only goes to show there are different ways to feed yourself.

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