Bro, sit down 'cause I got news that'll make you wonder what the hell is happening with this country! I went to Bookfest earlier, at Romexpo, and what do you see? Parking lots full of fancy foreign cars, repainted with skill, like the Germans and French don't even need the 'Rabla' program to absorb junk - Romanians buy them anyway. Man, if they come with BMWs and Audis to the fair, at least they should buy some books too, right? But no, they just come to show off taking pics with their cars in front of the entrance.
Now, let's get to the point. Saturday was packed with people, but publishers are complaining that sales dropped about 10% compared to last year. That's exactly how much I lost on horses last week! And check out what sells best: Dumas the Elder and Dostoevsky. Ice cold, bro! You'd think Romanians buy classics instead of new releases, like some 'cultural snobs' on TV say. But hey, for many of them, Dostoevsky is new - they haven't read him even in school, unless they caught a summary on TikTok.
Publishers, the guys from Cațavencii asked them, said that in times of crisis, Romanians first cut books from their shopping list. Well, yeah, bro, when I see a book price of 60 lei, I think how many shawarmas I can get for that money! And Mioara, my wife, keeps saying: 'Better buy bread than a book, bread you eat, the book just sits there.' Well, she doesn't know I've had 'Moromeții' on my nightstand for 2 years, since I borrowed it from Fane at the terrace.
Now, let's see what sold at the publishers, 'cause it's interesting. At the Trei Publishing Group, the surprise is a book with a title that represents me: 'What Do We Do with So Many Fools?' by Theodor Paleologu. That guy is smart, but the title seems written for me when I watch political news. It beat the novel 'The Gardener and Death' by Georgi Gospodinov - and I don't like gardening, I only have a basil pot on the balcony that Mioara put there.
At Nemira, first place is Matt Haig with 'The Midnight Library'. No idea who Matt Haig is, but if that train arrives on time, it's more efficient than our CFR! Humanitas Fiction has at the top 'My Real Name' by Ludmila Ulitskaya - a Russian, of course, since we have business with the East. At plain Humanitas, Radu Paraschivescu with 'The New Guide of the Shameless' surpassed 'Texistence' by Mircea Cărtărescu. Listen, bro, 'The New Guide of the Shameless' - it's like the manual for BMW drivers, 'cause I know well how it is to be shameless behind the wheel!
And at Polirom, the best-selling book is 'There Are Rivers in the Sky' by Elif Shafak, a plausible candidate for the Nobel Prize. But they say the Swedish Academy jury ignores her precisely because of her talent. What can I say, bro? It's like in football: Messi didn't win the Ballon d'Or every year, but he was still Messi. For now, I'm going to explain to Mioara why I spent 60 lei on a book instead of a shawarma - let's see if she believes me!
