I used to have a philosophy. If you have a free day, just walk to the center square, there is usually something going on.
Okay, so that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I followed one of my favorite publishers and now I know when the book fairs are. Yesterday, I went to three stands, and I saw books in all of them that I liked.
Sure, some of you may not speak Romanian yet, so you wonder, how is a Romanian book fair for you? First of all, if you want to learn, there are easy readers, children’s books, and even a cool verb disk. Secondly, if you go to some of the stands, you will find plenty of books in English.
In fact, I think it was at Astro, it seemed that half the books were in English. There was a wide variety of books, including easy reader versions of classics like Mill on the Floss and the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe, to non-fiction, comic books, albums, spy stories, and more.
There were also great Romanian books at the stand, including readers for every age from grade 1 to 8. (And, hence, readers for every level of Romanian, hint hint.)
I did not recognize all of the modern authors in the English sections, but hey, I’ve been in Romania for over two years.
Yes, as a lot of Romanians speak English, they read in English too. In fact, there are verb wheels in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish to help you with your language skills, as well as Romanian. But in foreign languages, it seems that English has the most variety. (that said, there is a stand in one of the big tents that has a lot of classics and easy readers in French and German as well, from A1 to B2 level, including Count of Monte Cristo, Cyrano de Bergerac, and what must be a shortened version of Three Musketeers).
If you know a little bit of Romanian, I found a lot of books for adults in simple Romanian too. It seems one of those books, that I wanted to highly recommend, I bought the second to last copy! Yes, that is another reason I am not listing the books, I don’t want people to be saying, “That guy from Hey Cluj, said he found my favorite book at the Gaudeamus book fair, but when I went, it was gone!”
A lot of books do go quickly, as they are available at promotional prices at the fair.
If you don’t find your favorite books there, there are quite a few bookshops in the center and even a couple of relatively big ones around the square. I like those shops too.
But I would recommend trying the book fair, just for the atmosphere of it, at least once. In addition to books, you can find board games, music, and more. For more information, you can check out the official Gaudeamus website (it is in Romanian).
https://www.gaudeamus.ro/info/gaudeamus-cluj-napoca-2023/8431
Stop by the main square from the 5th to the 9th of April 2023, from 10 am until 8 pm.