Fair has perfect fodder for book worms
A three-day event will be every bookworm’s delight at the upcoming Hawera book fair.
The Hawera Genealogy Society and South Taranaki Museum Trust’s annual fundraiser will be held from Thursday September 29 to Saturday October 1.
Organiser Jill Williams said that with at least 20,000 books on offer, it was the region’s biggest fair.
‘‘The book selection is fantastic. We’ve got lots of fiction and we’ve tried to re-categorise some of the categories,’’ she said.
The health and craft sections have been isolated in to subsections in a bid to support readers as they sift through the works available.
‘‘We’ve had some really good books come in.’’
Helpers have been meeting twice monthly since November 2015 to sort books and prepare for the event, she said.
Fiction will be categorised by author and will include Mills and Boon, westerns, classics and large print.
Non-fiction will be sorted into categories, biographies, hobbies, gardening, cooking, sewing, travel, animals, health, religion, education, humour, war, history, sport, vehicles, farming, royalty, art, photography, music, plays and poetry.
‘‘We’ve got a good selection of Bryce Courtenay, James Patterson, there’s a box set of Wilbur Smith, there’s a box of Agatha Christies.’’
There will be a section devoted to New Zealand works.
Proceeds from the event are shared between the two organising groups and go towards projects.
The South Taranaki Museum Trust will be putting their funds toward expanding their Patea building.
‘‘This is our third year. It’s effective for us.’’
Mt View Lions began the book fair and ran the fair for 15 years but passed it over to the Genealogy Society and Museum Trust when the work became too labour intensive for volunteers.
Books are only $2 each and Williams said a large turnover provided avid readers with new options each year.
The fair will be held at Hawera’s St Joseph’s Church Hall, Victoria Street, Thursday September 29 8.30am – 7pm, Friday September 30 8.30am – 6pm and Saturday October 1 9am – 2pm.