It was that time of year again. The annual Book fair, this time around being held at the biggest railway station in Asia, where no trains yet stop, Bang Sue Central Station. It's also currently the biggest vaccination centre in Thailand but as they were having a week off from jabbing, the book sellers took over from the medics.
So while the wife was wandering the novels section, grabbing selfies with the authors and grabbing as much free merch as possible, I was wandering around the surreal world of the cartoon books!
'Cartoon' books are very popular here in Thailand as they are in most other parts of Asia. Japanese anime and manga have proliferated throughout SE Asia and go from strength to strength.
One of the biggest recent developments though appear to be in the rise of the graphic educational works. Many volumes are available from various publishers with history, science and geography seemingly particularly well covered.
Children's cartoon versions of eco-conscious books on waste management, soil protection, growing your own food etc etc. Why cut down one tree and stick all the information into one book with words in when you can cut down loads of trees to create numerous volumes of picture books?
In a bite-sized, concise and instant-gratification society in which we find ourselves, these easily digested sources of knowledge fit right in and I know many kids who love them. Their proof of usefulness though, is when children then voluntarily pursue a course of continuation to flesh out the snippets of knowledge they have taken onboard.
I would much rather authors produced more children's version of their grown-up books but I guess cartoon versions are better than nothing.
The worry for me is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and these books often provide very little in the way of context to the subject being discussed, mostly applicable in historical texts cartoons, which can then be left to imagination and interpretation to create possibly incorrect background. I shouldn't worry too much about that here in Thailand as I've seen Thai history books that kids use in schools which are simply instruments to praise the Kings and glory in violent triumphs over Burma.
The point of all this is that at the book fair last weekend, I saw this...
It's the graphical (cartoon) version of the seminal work by Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens. Converted and dumbed down into a graphic story for both adults and kids.
Now the guy you see at the table signing copies is the guy who did the official translations of both the original and graphic versions of the book and was signing everything anyone stuck in front of him!
I haven't read the graphic version so I won't comment but there must be whole lot of volumes planned if they're going to cover all the detail of the the original.
Anyway, it what it is I guess and perhaps its just me being 'old'. The world has changed in many respects but at least it's good to see that books are still as popular as ever here, as you can tell from the crowds that thonged the vendors.
How much did I want to take one of these from the middle...
There was also a lot more 'merch' on sale this year. Collecting stuff seems to growing here and some of the prices are eye-watering which leads me to think this is just another middle-class bubble trend but all things Korean and Japanese are always in vogue.
'Gundam' is a bit last year but still remains popular, with a number of shops in Bangkok dedicated solely to the franchise.
More graphic novels from Korea and Japan and translated into Thai. Teenage erotic gay fiction is huge here at the moment and the bookshops are full of it and its read by mainly hetrosexual teenagers. Another trend imported from Japan.
We like backpacks in Thailand!
And then it all starts getting rather weird...
Days with my Step Sister??!!
Whoa! that's definitely a bibliophile dream place. My eyes landed on sapiens, the cartoon version! I wanna have them 😃 but looks like it's written in Thai.
~mac
Mac you'd love it. This book fair is an annual event and it's huge. This was just one small section . But yes, although it's easy to buy books in English here in many of the big book stores and online, like my wife's kids bookshop, there was very very little in English.
Does Big Bad Wolf ever do book fairs in Indonesia?
Yeah, BBW is a huge thing here as well, they always hold it in Jakarta and I've never had the chance to visit because I dislike jakarta :D maybe if they hold one this year, I'll try to come and just stay for a day instead longer.
Lol, the irony of the eco-conscious books is superb.
Looks like a good fair. I think graphic novels are having a bit of a resurgence everywhere. My daughter keeps getting old classics converted into Manga style graphic novels and I have read a couple and quite liked them. Wouldnt buy em right enough but I liked em! :OD
Which just kind of reminded me that I did sometimes read those when I was a kid, 'Commando' I think!
Yes, the little fella who, along with his Mum lives with us has some English classics too and he also loves them, but then asks far too many questions for me to answer without the aid of google.
I guess anything that encourages kids to read and learn should be classed as a good thing :-)
Aw man, Commando ones were great, I loved the ones where it was all about the spitfires!
I agree, if it gets them reading and not screaming out for tablets or tellys then all good!
Yay! 🤗
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Haha I assume 90% of goers there buy a book (or books) and never actually read them XD It happens a lot lol.
Hahaha so you found the waifus section. Yeah they're a different world out there...
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