SHARJAH, UAE- A stack of manga filling gaps in a young reader’s collection. Five books from a children’s series new to another reader. A self-development title first spotted on social media. And a literary classic getting another chance after an unfinished first attempt.
The shopping bags leaving the 45th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2026) reflect the varied reading interests of the visitors carrying them home.
For Pakistani visitor Sehar Khan, a trip to the fair with her 11-year-old son Naqqash and friends turned into shopping for several members of the family.
Naqqash is preparing to start a new series after picking up five Tom Gates books. Khan also bought Super Stories of Prophets as gifts for younger nieces and nephews and planned to look for leadership books for herself.
“We just came to visit,” Khan said, explaining that they had arrived without a fixed shopping list. “We liked the collection, so we picked a couple of books for them, for Naqqash, for gifting, all of that.”
Hunting for the missing volumes
For 11-year-old Emirati reader Yousif Ahmed Al Marzooqi, the visit involved a more targeted search.
A fan of the Demon Slayer manga series, Yousif already owns the first 18 volumes and arrived looking for the next two. “I had to go to many shops,” he said after finally finding volumes 19 and 20.
For now, that is enough. “I need to finish both volumes to continue,” said Yousif, who plans to complete the series through volume 23.
He has also watched the animated series and film, but when asked which he prefers, his answer was immediate: “Books.”
From social media to the shopping bag
Chinese visitor Zhang Yinglin came with a particular title already in mind: Energize Your Mind: Learn the Art of Mastering Your Thoughts, Feelings and Emotions by Gaur Gopal Das.
“It’s more about how you control your mind, the way you think,” Zhang said. He had discovered the book through social media and, although he does not usually buy self-development titles, decided to give this one a try.
Finding it proved easy. “The first store,” he said. “I saw it and decided to buy it.”
Zhang’s previous SIBF visit had been around a decade earlier, when his children were younger, and the book was only the beginning of his shopping for the day.
An unfinished classic gets another chance
For Richard Howland from the UK, meanwhile, SIBF offered a chance to return to the one book he had started but never completed.
On his first visit to the fair, after discovering it on Instagram, Howland bought a classic edition of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
“It’s the one book I’ve started but never finished,” he said. “So I decided I’m going to buy it and try and make it through this time.”
The purchase had not been planned. Seeing the edition on the shelves brought the unfinished book back to mind.
“It has inspired me,” Howland said. “I’ll start again from the beginning and give it a proper shot.”
Organised by the Sharjah Book Authority, the 45th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2026) runs from November 4 to 15 at Expo Centre Sharjah under the theme ‘Made of Stories’, with the Sultanate of Oman as Guest of Honour. The fair brings together 3,212 publishers and exhibitors from 126 countries, showcasing more than 1.7 million titles. Its programme features 1,500 cultural, creative and artistic events, with 106 guests from 25 countries.
