In German it's called the Frankfurt Buchmesse (for the xenolinguistically-challenged among you: Buch = book and Messe = exhibition) which is why one of my more misguided English students described it to me as, ze biggest book mess in ze world!
I remember thinking at the time, 'you haven't seen my bookcases mate!'
Anyhow, I went on behalf of my book - did I mention that I had written a book?
Ah! There it is...I was there about 6 or 7 years ago too when the book was just sheets of A4 stapled together and I thought I would try again now that it is such a lovely tome.
(What do you say to a book maker when he visits you?
Make yourself a tome!)
The Buchmesse has got bloated since I was last there it seems. For example the catalogue I bought last time was a bit less than half an inch thick and this year's was split into two volumes which put together are about 2 inches thick. It also seems to have become more slick and impersonal.
It's still fascinating to stroll through hall after hall and marvel at the sheer immensity of the exhibition and the mountains of publications but wandering round hawking my work I felt a bit like an anachronistic peddler with a hand cart creaking through a swish concrete and glass shopping arcade.
Anyway, they'll be sorry... Harry Potter - where are you??
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