33rd Annual Book Fair in Paris! Let's read!

This weekend (Palm Sunday weekend) is the Salon du Livre in Paris, Porte de Versailles. So, being the nerdy book-lovers that we are...we HAD to go!

We left Courcelle at the early hour of 10:30am.  I say "early" somewhat sarcastically because it can be considered late.  At any rate, there was not a soul to be found on the train until we passed the next village town of Bures-sur-Yvette, two stops away. I took this opportunity to get a rare RER metro photo!

Looking so chic in his jacket too!

We got there no problem.

You can almost hear an entrance theme song. At least, I did in my head.

We walked right in, had our ticket scanned and were immediately pummeled by French people from all sides. Here I thought that the Book Fair would be less attended by Parisians than the Agriculture Fair. Silly me.
I told Mr. K to blaze a trail through to the back corner near the cookbooks and I'd follow.
I almost lost sight of him!

Let's play a little game called, "Where's Mr. K?"

But then he stopped to check his bearings and I caught up to him and held onto his messenger bag back strap for dear life. Hah! Can't get rid of me that easily!

He looks so svelt here. Almost all the men were wearing sport coats.

We got to the cookbooks and were amazed at the size of the area for them! It was about the size of a Barnes and Noble store just for cooking books. They had two chefs doing demonstrations from recipes in cookbooks. You had shaped books in forms of Nutella jars, yogurt pots, macaroons, bananas, tajines, you name it! They even had chocolates being sold, where they were wrapped up in factoid papers from different eras or "littérature" pieces. I thought they were cool, but I didn't want to get any. It's always a gamble on chocolates when a gimmick is involved. I prefer mine from a boutique or Maxim's or even from the supermarkets.

We then began wondering around the cookbook area. We happened to be passing the Sci-fi section when what to our wondering eyes did appear? A stormtrooper!

And, oh yeah, Tony Stark, as Iron Man was there...on a pedestal. 

There is no other way to present Iron Man than on his own pedestal.

They had a Superman running around too. I wanted to get a picture with Superman, but Mr. K said no. There were too many people around and plus, he said as an aside, the Superman looked kinda wimpy/skeevy. Mr. K likes to look out for his lady. He's my Superman.

Up! Up and away!

We stumbled into the Manga section. Very cool. They had books out for reading on little tables. They were chained down everywhere. Those books must be fast runners. 
It was here that I saw a beautiful Manga drawing on a booth wall:

Apparently, Chihayafuru is a very high selling manga these days. I just thought she was pretty. The cards she is throwing are karuta cards (a competitive card game in elementary and middle school which have some proverbs on them).
I saw some drawings being done for a large crowd and tried to get a picture of them; however, pictures were forbidden. Ooops. I didn't see the sign. The young man was so nice when he told me I had to delete the photos, though. No problem. No worries. I respect the privacy of artists. (The artist did not want to be known outside of Japan just yet.)


Moving on. We passed the Crime/Police thrillers. They even had a set up of a crime scene! The poor mannequin was knocked over (or should I say knocked out?).

As a last look at the Salon Du Livre, I leave you with this gem: book lovers under a banner in a sea of books.

Très French!

Happy Reading!
Bisous!