The Book Fair at Dam Square

We were at the second-had book fair at the Dam Square today. While English was rather poorly represented, it didn’t stop us from spending time in the company of some beautiful old books.

Dam square book fairDam square book fair

And yes the irony of English paperbacks selling cheaper than Dutch comics wasn’t lost on us either.

Dam square book fairDam square book fair

I was a little surprised to see the amount of mainstream popular Western culture that has been (and is) accessible in Dutch. Back home, if you know just your native’ language, you can almost be sure you are cut-off from the world at large.

I am not sure if it was the weather, but it felt like the book fair must have seen better days. I wonder for how many years will it continue to have legs - given the general decline of reading coupled with the rise of the e-book.


Date
May 22, 2011