The Autumn Book Festival opened at Thong Nhat Park in Hanoi on August 22, featuring 55 booths of nearly 45 publishers and distributors.

Visitors to the 2018 Autumn Book Festival at Thong Nhat Park in Hanoi 

The annual event, lasting through August 26, offers the latest publications in a wide range of fields such as politics – law, economics, science – technology, education, literature, culture – society, and religion.

It also includes many activities like exchanges between writers and readers, introduction of new books, and entertainment activities encouraging the reading habit.

A programme as part of the festival will call on visitors to donate old books to children in Ta Gia Khau commune of Muong Khuong district, the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Hoang Vinh Bao said despite certain difficulties, the publishing sector has always organised activities to develop the reading movement in the community, and the 2018 Autumn Book Festival is an example.

The ministry hopes that the festival, together with other book-related events will form a series of regular cultural activities to promote people’s reading habit, thereby helping to develop a learning society, he added.

The festival is held by the ministry’s Authority of Publication, Printing and Distribution and the Vietnam Publishers Association.-VNA