Added attractions of the festival, apart from over a million books on show, are the cultural programmes that happen everyday – ranging from children’s dance programmes to carnatic jugalbandis.

The added sweetener for Book lover is the hefty discounts offered on all titles – including the latest releases – I bought Dev Anand’s autobiography at a neat 140 Rupee Discount!

There over 300 stalls in the book fair – with a sizeable representation of all classes and languages of books. I had gone there with my family – and there was something for everyone. My parents were rather delighted to find the range of Kannada books and magazines on display – and they bought quite a few, with discounts ranging from 10 to 20%.

There was a stall with Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings displayed – and with reproductions available for sale as well – at reasonable prices – starting from as low as 50 Rupees!

There was this gorgeous paiting – printed on Canvas, which I thought would fit right onto my wall, but at 4,000 Rupees was slightly beyond my means – so I bought a paper reproduction of the same! (Unfortunately no web link seems available!)

There are also various book publishers – Tata McGraw Hill, Prentice Hall India, Navkarnataka, Cambridge University Press, and many more!

For the spiritually minded, there are various stalls from publishers and spiritual organisations alike – Ramana Maharshi Ashram, ISCKON, etc., – although notable absentees were Art of Living Foundation.

Exclusive stalls on Islam, Gandhiji, on rare books etc., were among the niche stalls

Kannada Language book, littérateurs profiles are available in a wide range – stalls from Navakarnataka, Sahitya Parishad and the like display the best of Kannada literature available – so if you want to discover Kannada literature, head straight to the Book Festival.

Update: Another Book Festival is on at Palace Grounds, off Mekhri Circle. 2 & 4 wheeler parking is widely available, and hassle free. Open on weekends till 9pm from about 11 in the morning

Authors : Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
ISBN : 006073132X
Publish Date : April 2005
Publisher : HarperCollins Publishers

The introduction says “The hidden side of everything“, which actually captures the whole theme of this book. The hidden economic reasons in different aspects of life.

Let me briefly describe the best case study in the book, involving an analysis of the hidden reasoning for drop in crime in the US in the early 1990s.

The authors writes “it was not the innovative policying strategies, tough gun control laws or strong economy that led to this drop. Steven argues for and against every such factor and concludes that none could cause such a major drop“.

This is their reasoning, “In 1973, the US supreme court extended legalized abortion to the whole country. In the first year some 750,000 women had abortions in the US. By 1980, the number of abortions reached 1.6 million. Poor and single-parent household is the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future. The crime rate fell because an entire generation came of age minus the children whose mothers had not wanted to bring a child into the world.”

This reasoning is sure to evoke extreme reactions and you may totally disagree with this view. But the authors have done their homework and supports their view with a very detailed analysis.

They further write, “typical economists believe that the world has not yet invented a problem that he cannot fix if given a free hand to design the proper incentive scheme. There are three basic flavors of incentives: economic, social and moral.

economic : an overhead “sin-tax” on cigarettes
social : “shaming offensive” with pictures on tv against prostitution
moral : asserting that terrorists raise money by selling black-market cigarettes”

I found this to be a very unique and promising idea.
But he then gives a caution, “an improperly designed incentive can also cause havoc”. He illustrates this with a case study of high-stakes testing for teachers. “If a teacher’s students are found scoring poorly, the teacher’s promotion/raise was to be withheld and on scoring well, the teachers stand to earn bonuses of upto $25,000. This became a powerful combination of incentives for the teacher to cheat or help the students while they are taking exams.”

Few interesting case studies covered:

• Ku Klux Klan, superman and real-estate agents !!
• Quid Pro Quo agreements between Sumo wrestlers in Japan
• Life of drug dealers
• Parenting: what is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool
• The science of naming a child : trends in the names of the white and the black/ names of the the rich and the poor.

Few of my favorite book stores in Bangalore:

• Book paradise, 75, 8th E Main, NIIT Tower, 4th Block, Jayanagar, Ph: 080-26637466
• Landmark, Forum Mall, Ph: 080-2206-7777 / 78 / 80
• Blossom, #84/6, Opp. Amoeba, Church Street, Ph: 080-25320400