Shanghai Book Fair to kick off in Aug

Shanghai announced on Monday that the 18th installment of the Shanghai Book Fair will take place from Aug 11 to 17.

According to the organizers, this year's fair will have its exhibition space expanded to an unprecedented 30,000 square meters.

Besides the 25,000-square-meter main venue at Shanghai Exhibition Center, the fair will also take place in three new commercial complexes in the city: the 800 SHOW creative industry center in Jing'an district, Music Valley in Hongkou district and Sinan Mansions in Huangpu district.

According to Xu Jiong, head of the municipal administration for press and publication, the book fair will highlight a number of new bookstores, each of which has a distinctive specialty and characteristic.

The book fair will also introduce a new online map featuring brick-and-mortar bookstores in the city. The map was developed by Meituan, an integrated online service provider, and Shanghai Observer, a news portal.

The municipality has called on publishers and exhibitors to cut down their exhibits at the fair.

"We encourage readers to flip through the books at the fair and make their purchases online so that the books will be delivered straight to their homes,” Xu said.

This year, the fair will invite for the first time online bookstores such as JD and e-commerce platforms on short-video sharing platform Douyin to participate in the showcase.