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He was pretty sedate --- the Dutch publishers didn't

show up with any of their infernal windmills

Scenes from the 2007 Panama International Book Fair

photos and captions by Eric Jackson

This reporter went to the book fair on Thursday night, to avoid the mobs at other times. That may have led to an underestimate of its size, but it seems that this year's fair, at which Spain was the invited publishing industry guest, was not so big as some of the earlier versions.

It's not so much that Panama, which is not a great per capita consumer of books in any case, has lost such interest as it had in reading. However, the euro is riding high against the dollar, so in the Spanish-langauge publishing industry Spain's publishing houses are getting thrashed by their competitors in Chile and other Latin American countries. Thus, although they were the guests of honor, Spain's book publishers couldn't expect to make a lot of sales and thus didn't turn out in force.

Caricaturist Louis Taylor III, who makes his living

largely as an engineer but draws for La Critica and

El Panama America and used to do cartoons for The

Panama News when we were in print publication,

was on hand to draw people at the fair. Some day,

apparently not soon, we may see a book of his work

Our underfunded national library's booth attracted relatively few visitors

Pat Alvarado, who edits the wit and wisdom of Sparky the Wonder Dog for The

Panama News, has made a good business of writing and publishing bilingual

children's books --- or in the case of Ho Choy finds a treasure, trilingual books

Profound classics and banal trash on the Hombre de la Mancha discount table

The government's National Institute of Culture (INAC)

wasn't all that popular a booth on Thursday night

Now if Taiwan would only sell retail! The Republic of China, as usual, had a most

beautiful and appealing collection of hardcover books in Spanish, English and

Chinese --- but just for display. The history of Spaniards in Taiwan and some nature

photo books were the most appealing Taiwanese offerings to this reporter's eyes

Cimarron culture was, in its origins, pre-literate. Now, however, the folks who

maintain the congo dancing tradition also publish things that make people laugh

The people from Huellas were among the several contingents of artists

Hmmm --- if hizzoner El Alcalde is going to be elected president in

2009, isn't the time approaching for him to publish another book?

Did you miss the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo booth at the Book

Fair? You can still buy beautiful catalogues of the works of artists

whose work the institution has featured at the museum in Ancon

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