Independent Bookshop Week 2021, part of the Booksellers Association's Books Are My Bag campaign, started Saturday and continues through this Saturday, June 26. The initiative celebrates indie bookshops in the U.K. and Ireland with events, celebrations, reading groups, storytelling, author signings, literary lunches and more.
"Bookshops deliver a huge amount to their communities and their high streets. Every town or city is richer with a bookshop and they are heroes," Books Are My Bag posted on Facebook.
Bookends Keswick noted: "This week, come celebrate with us everything that's awesome about indie book shops! In partnership with @booksaremybag, IBW is our chance to give back even more to you lovely book lovers."
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This year's digital Bologna Children's Book Fair had a 55% increase in page views compared to the 2020 online edition. The Bookseller reported that the fair, "which moved to June owing to the pandemic, said it attracted more than 75,000 visits from around the world. In all, 16,000 people took active part in its scheduled initiatives, while 800 exhibitors registered on tits rights exchange platform."
BolognaBookPlus, a new general trade strand, debuted at the fair. It was organized by guest director Jacks Thomas, former director of the London Book Fair, who said, "Launching BolognaBookPlus in 2021 has been challenging and exhilarating in equal measure and we are delighted with the output which is a solid foundation on which to build out the offering even further as we forge forward."
BCBF exhibition manager Elena Pasoli commented: "BolognaBookPlus marks a turning point in BCBF history: for the first time in our 58-year history, in addition to 250+ events at the children's fair, in virtual form this year, Bologna brought together worldwide publishing industry professionals, not just from children's publishing, to discuss the key issues for the entire publishing industry at this particular time."
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| Mount Zero Books | |
In Hong Kong, "booksellers walk a fine line" under the security law imposed by Beijing last year. "As they navigate the constraints of the sweeping law, many independent bookstores have strengthened their resolve to connect with their readers and crystallized their roles as vibrant community hubs," the New York Times reported. "In interviews, booksellers said that more people had rushed to buy books and photo collections documenting the 2019 protests, driven by the fear that these records would one day disappear. Some customers, meanwhile, have simply turned to their neighborhood bookstores for a sense of connection."
"The social movement has changed the way people read and the value they place on books," said Pong Yat Ming, founder of Book Punch. "I want to bring out that kind of energy, that desire for change through reading. Books are powerful, like forceful punches responding to the social environment."
"There's been a greater need for people to gather around the hearth and keep warm together," noted Sharon Chan, owner of Mount Zero Books. "When the pain is so collective, the biggest challenge for us is how to maintain a healthy outlook, to keep finding books that our readers would want, to help them relax a bit. I think they see this as a space where they can feel safe and find like-minded people.... They could try to ban us from doing certain things in public, but that will not stop us from doing so in private. Justice is on my side, and I do not feel afraid.”
Daniel Lee, who runs Hong Kong Reader, observed: "We can't completely uphold freedom of speech, because the law has changed. To the greatest extent possible, we will try to run our bookstore without breaking the law. So if the government can explicitly say that there are problems with certain books, we will follow. It's a compromise.... As long as something called a 'bookstore' is allowed to exist, we will continue selling books." --Robert Gray