Why do we need the Shanghai Book Fair?, Today in Zhuozhou, Hebei | Institution | Shanghai

In mid August, two events related to books touched the hearts of many people. One is that during the heavy rainfall in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, the book warehouses of multiple publishing institutions located in Zhuozhou, Hebei and other places were flooded; The second is the Shanghai Book Fair, which reappears during the summer after two years.

"The Shanghai Book Fair was held in the scorching summer of August, as if the entire industry was paying tribute to reading with the highest enthusiasm and most enthusiastic celebration, while also expressing the most sincere sincerity to readers with the most arduous labor." The words of a publisher are touching. Readers who come to the book fair in the scorching heat, as well as those who enthusiastically purchase "Zhongtu Net Fuel Pack", are undoubtedly enthusiastic and lovely. The Shanghai Book Fair, such a grand festival, belongs to this group of lovely bookmakers, readers, and book lovers.

Similarly, just like Zhuozhou Book Industry, which is facing difficulties, Shanghai is also committed to creating a "national book exhibition in Shanghai" this year, proposing to "make Shanghai Book Exhibition a true platform for serving the whole country.". Therefore, on the basis of presenting high-quality Shanghai edition book resources, this year's book fair has introduced more domestic book resources, and national key publishing groups and excellent private publishing institutions have all made appearances - all of these demonstrate that the love for books is blowing from all directions.

In the current highly circulated book resources, it is difficult to say which city or region is the central node of the book industry. However, the reverence for knowledge and respect for culture will still be engraved in the genes of a city for a long time, permeating the atmosphere of the streets and alleys, making the city a cultural coordinate that people yearn for.

Shanghai is the birthplace of China's modern publishing industry and also a traditional publishing hub. In the late 1970s, Shanghai held various book markets and exhibitions. Readers riding bicycles to attend exhibitions can quickly buy a truck full of books. This series of activities laid a solid reader foundation for the annual Shanghai Book Fair and also laid the foundation for the cultural character of this city.

So it is not difficult to understand why the demand for books among Shanghai residents has only increased and not decreased during the past two summers without book exhibitions. In the place where language stops, poetry advances; in the place where life stops, soul advances; in the place where roses stop, fragrance advances. The book exhibition can take a temporary break, but the symbiotic relationship between the city and the fragrance of books, like mountains and rivers, will not be interrupted. At the pause of the book exhibition, the fragrance of books moved forward and gave people the power to look forward.

Now, the normalized Shanghai Book Fair has resumed, attracting crowds from all over the country to join the book market. They can not only enjoy "Taoshu Le" at the main venue of the Shanghai Exhibition Center, but also stroll through the characteristic sub venues of various districts and the reading sub venues mainly composed of public libraries and physical bookstores, witnessing the book exhibition sweeping the entire city. It can be imagined that in the coming week, people who love books will once again gather together, resonating with books across time and space, and reading will become a way of life and daily behavior for more people.

"Shanghai already has large physical bookstores such as the Shanghai Book City, making it extremely convenient to buy books. Is it necessary to continue holding large-scale book exhibitions?" Someone had raised this question before the first Shanghai Book Fair was held in 2004. The nearly 20 years of practice have proven that the Shanghai Book Fair is not only necessary, but should also be held well and for a long time. Because it is not only a symbol of the cultural personality of this city, but also transcends narrow regionalism and calls out to the broader world. In this sense, we should cherish this wind from all directions even more, so that the fragrance of books is not just a gust of wind, and the book exhibition is not just a brief holiday, but a background of Shanghai's urban culture that never fades.