Pune Mirror: If you want to grab a classic or that Harry Potter edition you have been lusting after for Rs 50, where would you head to? If the local raddi shop comes to your mind, we have a better option for you. Head to the Institution of Engineers, Shivajinagar. The Goa-based Broadway Book Centre is selling popular best-sellers — all for Rs 50! But this treat is limited and will be on till October 9, after which the venue will be taken over by another book fair hosted by Strand.
The exhibition, which started on September 9 with a low-key inauguration, is currently witnessing hundreds of people making a beeline for the books on offer. The organisers, overwhelmed by the response, said they are happy with their ‘decent’ profits.
A visit to the venue located on the first floor of the building revealed neatly stacked books, numbering in thousands, spread all over the hall. Avid readers were seen picking up their favourite titles after long and careful searching.
Khalid Ahmad, proprietor of Broadway Book Centre, told Mirror that around 40,000 books have been sold after the sales began. “We had unloaded three truckloads of cartons containing around 1,40,000 titles. The response has been above our expectations and we believe that Pune is a book-readers’ city. Despite selling books at Rs 50 each, we are earning our profits, which was not our only motive. We want to provide people with the best quality of paper on international scale at minimum prices,” he added.
Among the books that are selling like hot cakes are those by Dan Brown, Sidney Sheldon, John Grisham, Paulo Coelho and the Harry Potter series. Other than those, thousands of titles on non-fiction, science, medicine, psychology and other myriad subjects are up for sale.
Khalid’s son Faheem said, “We have been coming to Pune for quite a long time since the city is one of the best markets for books due to its dedicated and genuine readers. We wanted to extend our stay at the venue, but the management has said that further dates have been booked.”
Sudhakar Vedpathak, a senior citizen, said he was happy to browse through a number of books at one time. “The variety of books is huge and the prices are low enough for people to splurge on,” he said
Reena Kulkarni, an English literature student from SP College, said she has purchased about two dozen books. “The choice is limitless and the books are very cheap. You never know when you’ll get a chance to get such quality books dirt cheap in future,” she said. The organisers said they are planning to showcase another batch of serious non-fiction books for the public during the next couple of days.
