It was such a mistake to go to the Interliber Book Fair on a Saturday morning! In spite of the pouring rain and cold weather, rivers of people were flowing in creating the indescribable crowd.

We were waiting a few minutes in a several-rows-thick line to enter the pavilion with the leading Croatian publishers just to be pushed around, stepped on and elbowed, all while slowly crawling, creeping, crawling with a wet umbrella in your hand, barely being able to approach the stands with the books. And imagine, when you have managed to find the book you wanted, you had to wait again in line to pay for it.

Never before I have experienced such a crowd on a book fair. It was frustrating and exhausting; after less than three hours on Interliber I was so tired and weary like I had been swimming upstream all this time. I couldn't wait to get out of that beehive-like mess and come home. It took me another fifty minutes tram-ride through the rain-soaked early afternoon.

Satisfaction remains that I have managed to buy six books at very reduced prices (26 less than the previous year!!!) and added them to a growing pile of 96 books-to-be-read! When? One day in the future!

The books that came home with me today were: Signal by Patrick Lee, Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, Pines by Blake Crouch, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, and The Innocents by Laura Lippman.

BJ