Excursion Report: Printer's Row Book Fair
So a few weeks back I had a weekend away from the place without internet. Rather than running right home to this machine to gorge myself on video games and websites, I mooched as much money as I could and rode the Metra down to the Printer's Row Book Fair.
The fair was bought by the Chicago Tribune corporation and this changed the nature of the beast a little. First it was moved to later in the year. In years past I had skipped going because it was just to cold and windy to spend any length of time in an outdoor market. This was a good move on their part. The weather brought out huge numbers of people. I suppose if I had a booth there that would be cool, but personally I hate being crowded in by people, trying to dodge through a crowd to find an opening at a table. You just want to tell people to get the (explicative deleted) out of the way already.
I was stunned to see the number of people in the Barnes and Nobles tent as well as the borders tents. These are major retailers. They didn't bring discounted items or special collectibles. They packed up the contents of a store and dumped all right out under their monster circus tents. The only areas that took up more room were the children's stage and the food stage.
One of the least thought out aspects of this affair was the placement of the poetry stage. It was right next to the food stage. The food stage had tons of speakers and amplifiers and appreciative people going oooh and ahhh. To attend a poetry reading was to sit quietly straining to hear waiting for someone up front to give the cue that it was time to applause. Fortunately I was standing in the back and was able to discreetly slip away without offending anyone's delicate sensibilities.
I don't know if it was inflation or the presence of so many large corporate book sellers and sponsors, but this was not a trip like in the past where I would come home with an obnoxious amount of books only spending perhaps thirty dollars. Most bargain book sellers were offering a single price of five dollars a book for any book. A new paperback will cost from 6.99 to 8.99 these days. Not much of a bargain.
Cooking books were some of the biggest space wasters. It is as if some book sellers brought the contents of forty garage sales that had already been picked over. There might be some good stuff left, but for the most part you are left with out of date cook books and encyclopedias. You can not give those things away.
Science fiction was horribly under represented. I only found a couple of businesses that even bothered to separate them out from the rest of the mass market paper backs. One almost feels unclean wading through romance novels to find a decent space opera.
In summary: The Printer's row book fair needs more independent book sellers and fewer mega corporation monster tents. Some sort of thought should go into the zoning of the stages so that they do not overwhelm each other. I got maybe sixty dollars worth of books and sadly it only filled a couple of small plastic shopping bags.
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The fair was bought by the Chicago Tribune corporation and this changed the nature of the beast a little. First it was moved to later in the year. In years past I had skipped going because it was just to cold and windy to spend any length of time in an outdoor market. This was a good move on their part. The weather brought out huge numbers of people. I suppose if I had a booth there that would be cool, but personally I hate being crowded in by people, trying to dodge through a crowd to find an opening at a table. You just want to tell people to get the (explicative deleted) out of the way already.
I was stunned to see the number of people in the Barnes and Nobles tent as well as the borders tents. These are major retailers. They didn't bring discounted items or special collectibles. They packed up the contents of a store and dumped all right out under their monster circus tents. The only areas that took up more room were the children's stage and the food stage.
One of the least thought out aspects of this affair was the placement of the poetry stage. It was right next to the food stage. The food stage had tons of speakers and amplifiers and appreciative people going oooh and ahhh. To attend a poetry reading was to sit quietly straining to hear waiting for someone up front to give the cue that it was time to applause. Fortunately I was standing in the back and was able to discreetly slip away without offending anyone's delicate sensibilities.
I don't know if it was inflation or the presence of so many large corporate book sellers and sponsors, but this was not a trip like in the past where I would come home with an obnoxious amount of books only spending perhaps thirty dollars. Most bargain book sellers were offering a single price of five dollars a book for any book. A new paperback will cost from 6.99 to 8.99 these days. Not much of a bargain.
Cooking books were some of the biggest space wasters. It is as if some book sellers brought the contents of forty garage sales that had already been picked over. There might be some good stuff left, but for the most part you are left with out of date cook books and encyclopedias. You can not give those things away.
Science fiction was horribly under represented. I only found a couple of businesses that even bothered to separate them out from the rest of the mass market paper backs. One almost feels unclean wading through romance novels to find a decent space opera.
In summary: The Printer's row book fair needs more independent book sellers and fewer mega corporation monster tents. Some sort of thought should go into the zoning of the stages so that they do not overwhelm each other. I got maybe sixty dollars worth of books and sadly it only filled a couple of small plastic shopping bags.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 1:28 AM
3 Comments:
Leave it to the corporate suits to eventually turn a delightfully populist book fair into a crassly commercial cash grab.
Sooner orlater, capitalism rolls over everything. Sad.
So what did you get?
I went to a Noble only to find that they didn't have my book...further proof that i should just stay home and order my reading material from the net people.....i just wanted a copy of A feast for crows. was that too much to ask?
Found a few tables that had science fiction paperbacks fairly for either 1 dollar a book or 4 for 10.00. Amongst those: Frederik Pohl, Ben Bova, Kim Stanley Robinson, Mercedes Lackey, Timothy Zahn, James P. Hogan and a guy named tom dietz whom I had confused with William Dietz (futuristic military fiction).
Also I found a first edition hardcover of Vonnegut's breakfast of champions, though it wasnt in very good shape and had a distinct moldy basement smell.
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