Louis Baum

Louis Baum is editor of the Bookseller.

Thursday 27 May. Flight MA 611 from Heathrow to Budapest. The purpose of my visit is to look at Hungarian Book Week. The Budapest Daily News, which I pick up on the plane, carries a short preview of the event: a record 112 new titles are to be published for this year’s festival, with a total printing of three and a quarter million copies. The books are on average less expensive than last year. Among the titles expected to be in particular demand is a biography of Janos Kadar, First Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Party. It is by Laszlo Gyurko, and will be part of a larger study of Kadar to be published later this year by Pergamon Press. During my visit I am informed that this first-ever biography of Kadar was inspired by Robert Maxwell during a visit to Budapest.

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