Bangkok’s Book Fair Returns to Empty Your Tote Bag and Your Afternoon

Bangkok has once again devised a perfectly respectable way to make people spend money they did not mean to spend, and this time it is wrapped in the pleasant smell of paper. The Thai Book Fair is back at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, spreading itself across Halls 5 to 8 with more than 360 booths, which is roughly the number required to convince even a disciplined adult that one more book will not hurt.

This year’s theme, Read The Legend, has the faintly grand air of something devised by a ministry committee, but the fair itself sounds rather better than that. There are Thai novels, translations, children’s titles, imported books you do not usually see lying around Bangkok, and enough literary stage events to let everyone feel cultural while still carrying shopping bags the weight of a medium-sized dog.

Hall 8 is where the main stage action happens, with authors launching books and talking in public as writers now must. Hall 5 has the Author’s Salon for smaller conversations, which is a more civilised arrangement for anyone who prefers literature without the acoustics of an airport terminal. Upstairs, the Book Symposium sessions in Room MR 205 promise the sort of industry talk that is either stimulating or an excellent place to sit down for a moment.

For Bangkok expats, this is one of those useful reminders that the city’s cultural life is not limited to gallery openings, brunches and staring at traffic on Sukhumvit while your Grab driver claims he is nearly there. The fair runs until April 6, is free to enter, and offers the increasingly rare pleasure of wandering around something designed for attention rather than distraction.

So yes, go for one quick look if you like. Then come home with three novels, an illustrated children’s book you insist is for somebody else, and the vague but comforting feeling that your finances have suffered in a morally superior cause.