Summer Adventure—Have an Encounter with a Book Fair

Walking down the streets, you hear cicadas chirp vigorously in the trees. Shafts of sunlight pierce the twigs and cast down countless shadows in an array of circular spots. Waves of heat flow in the air. Yes, it's summer! So how do you plan to spend it? Travel around? Be a couch potato in an air-conditioned room? Or you can have a summer adventure exploring the book fairs.

At the gate, you look around the hall, overwhelmed with books and people, wondering which way to go first. Then, you glimpse those light-blue display boards that surround the exhibition area and go left. You linger around, not only because fancy book covers and exquisitely designed illustrations catch your attention, but also the design details inside the area appeal to you, making you feel as if you’re walking on the fine sand of a summer beach.

Hundreds of carefully chosen bestsellers are displayed neatly on the shelves

Traditional book displays are no longer the only element of a book fair. Here you put on VR and fly in the Spaceflight exploration hall; you grip a handful of sand and sketch your inner world through sand paintings; you appreciate the stamp exhibition celebrating the 70^th anniversary of modern China and admire how one stamp tells the changes of history. Different elements, ancient or modern, traditional or technological, are all mixed together and make the book fair about more than just books.

At last, you are drawn to this second-hand books area, a treasure trove that fuels your enthusiasm. Unlike popular bookstores that sell perfectly new bestsellers, this place sells old magazines from the 90s, yellowing novels that came out 30 years ago and rubbings of ancient monuments. You stoop for hours to dig out the treasure among piles of old books. Some may question the point of buying these ancient books. But you know sometimes it’s not what valuable books you find out that matter but the respect and affection for the old times. It is about restoring the true meaning of books and maintaining a sense of nostalgia towards history and our memories.

Flipping the pages of these picture-books from the 50s and 60s is like flipping open a generation’s memory

Summer without a book fair isn’t complete and a book fair without digging out surprises by yourself isn’t a true adventure. Surprises may lie in enjoying bestsellers or discovering precious second-hand books but eventually it's not just about the blast of reading and learning, but also about discovering the true shade of the fire in our hearts.