Yesterday we went to the Frankfurter Buchmesse which is best described as gigantic. After almost four hours of driving (yes, we’re that devoted or plain insane) we arrived in this sunny German city that is home to the biggest book fair in world for five consecutive days. I never really thought about going before but, seeing as my employer was kind enough to score me some tickets, nothing was standing in the way between me and bookish bliss.
Like I said, this place is huge. There are no less than twelve large halls (each one is about the size of the Boekenbeurs for all you Belgians out there) filled with beautiful books. The interesting thing about this fair however, is that although every publisher in the world is present with a quaint little stall, you can’t actually buy books. They’re sadly just for show but one hell of a show. There are just no words to describe this abundance, except wow. Trust me if you love books, you really need to check this out.
There were about five halls that housed the international publishers ranging from the USA to Romania, from Abu Dhabi to Peru and back to Belgium. It was fun browsing the Japanese, Finnish and even South African books. It’s not something you get to do every day, right? I was simply gobsmacked by how much is out there and the tiny fraction I’d heard of.
There were also two really big halls with German books (fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, tourism, cooking,…) which are like our own Boekenbeurs only twice as big. The concept’s the same: buy books, score some autographs by the many German authors who were signing books (I hate to admit that I didn’t know any of them) and simple get trampled on. Needless to say, we were out of there in no time. The comics section however, was a lot of fun seeing as loads of youngsters and mainly Goths came dressed like their favorite comic and fantasy characters, which was pretty cool.
Then there were three halls that were devoted to art, audiobooks and “publishing solutions and book trade services” aka digital press and eBooks which tickled my sweet peas fancy. We saw some pretty cool devices and although I’m not pro eBook, I have to admit it does offer a lot of awesome options which my better half is dying to explore.
What else? There was also a film and media centre which we sadly skipped because we were out of time and the literary agents’ floor which was sealed off to the public but intrigued me none the less.
My favorite hall of course was the biggest one with all the top American and British publishers: Penguin, Random House, Harper Collins, Faber & Faber,… You name, they were there with all the latest in fall fiction. Be still my beating heart…
Besides ogling loads of books there were also many interesting lectures on the future of the book for instance, book signings, interviews, basically everyone who’s anyone in the book industry was present.
It’s a shame we had to rush through the place like a couple of bats out of hell but I’m so glad we went, it was truly amazing, inspiring and oh so tiring. There are even busses to take you from one hall to the next, it that big!
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