Bookfair for book lovers, Copenhagen

This book fair in Copenhagen took place on the weekend from November 8^th throughout and ended on November 10^th, taking place in Bella Center, which is a huge place with different sized halls, and some of those were used for the first time for this book fair event. A friend of mine on Twitter offered and paid for the entrance as well the Danish Crime author Sara Blædel gave me a day ticket entrance. So geared up with the tickets I went off to the book fair, thinking it wouldn’t be too long walking around the stands with book on sales. I was totally wrong.

First of all, you see all those books with great offers all lined up, second lots of authors of those books are there to talk about them, third and most important you need a pair of great shoes. Seriously, you will do your feet a favor and last if you plan on getting a lot of books, you may as well bring along the car if you can afford that many books.

So Friday I missed the opening speech by Ken Follett as well his interview later in the afternoon due to another appointment the same day. I was glad though I was there this first day, to get an feeling on how this whole fair was like and how to find my way around it, because at first sight you need a map to find the different book sellers you wanted to look up. Saturday went a whole lot easier finding my way around the fair. I was there in time since my twitter friend had asked me to be there for the Danish Crime author writer Sara Blædel interviewing the Swedish author Åsa (Aasa) Larsson.

Let me first say I owe an apology to both Sara Blædel and the Swedish Crime author Åsa (Aasa) Larsson, I haven’t read one single of their books (did buy the first book of Åsa (Aasa) Larsson and went to the library to get Sara Blædel’s book to read) I have no idea what was talked about when they talked about their books, but it sounded too good to miss. I will get back on them books when I’ve read the books of Sara Blædel.

Back to the book fair, Saturday Sara was going to interview Åsa (Aasa) on stage about her latest new book (directly translated from Danish to English): “As offer to Molok” which came out in June 2012. What you would learn rather quickly with both Sara and Åsa, is that they know each other quite well and thus you got a different and more personal down to earth interview between two authors. There was lots of talk, laughter and seriously chat between them. And the interview was just too short even after about 30-40 minutes.

Shortly after the interview was over, Åsa was heading to a book signing (got the book, got the signature and sorry Åsa if I looked like I didn’t understand your Swedish, my other friend from Sweden can verify I had hard time understanding her only a week earlier….) and so was Sara, heading off to talk shortly about her own book “The forgotten girls” (directly translated from Danish to English) as well signing them afterwards. Here’s my only regret, there was a book offer that day and signature on the same day… should have gotten the book… (Sorry Sara, low on income, gotta look for those offer sometimes, will read the book still).

After that it was over for Sara that day and I walked around the book fair for a few hours before I got a bit too dizzy looking at all those book offers, so many people out there as well all those authors you just wanted to hear them all…

Sunday I was there in good time to line up for the interview I was looking forward to hear. Again it was with Sara, this time she was interviewed by another crime expert together with the former female head of Danish police force Hanne. The reason I was interested in this interview is I’ve actually been working temporarily and shortly for the police office, so this time I could more follow in the interview of these two ladies. It also turned out to be the first time Sara was interviewed together with Hanne and it was a great interview. One of the things said in the interview both from Sara and Hanne, was not all police work was not and should not be revealed for the public knowledge– which I agree with – so the police folks can do their job.

One of the good lines was when Sara told she was commented by her police contact that with all she knew about police work, it was almost like she had been working in there for real and Hanne admitted she had heard exactly the same thing from the same person Sara had talked with. Again the interview felt too short and ended far too fast.

Since it was the last day in there, I spend a few more hours out there before I went back home.

So in short to recap it all up… if you like books or want to buy a /many books for Christmas, then this book fair is a great place to go. Plus you can even be lucky to get the book signed by the author if he or she is out there (trust me there was lots of authors out there, it was almost like “oh oh – who should I go to etc etc…”) so when the program of the book fair comes out, plan ahead as best as you can before going there. Look up what kind of books you want to buy as you are most likely to find the book out there, yes even the popular ones was there, like said earlier wear a good pair of shoes, and make sure you give yourself time to enjoy the book fair out there. Oh I should mention it is children friendly too, there are some children space where they can be if they want to as well books for children.

I know I am making this short, but you have to be there to understand it....

So bring the family along, enjoy a rare opportunity to meet the authors, good interviews, and have a great time out there… see you next year???

A big Thank you to Gitte (@DKgpm) and Danish author Sara Blædel for this opportunity, see you next year?