All of Taiwan is quite literary, there are bookstores everywhere, people reading on the subway, an entire underground mall of bookstores, ... So the once a year Taipei International Book Exhibition is a big event.
I went yesterday and it is BIG. There were 3 exhibition halls in the shadow of the tallest building in Taiwan, e101, each devoted to one type of book. I estimate that two of the halls are each the size of a soccer field. Hall 1, the largest, is about 2 soccer fields.
Hall 3 was books for children, maybe 1 - 14 years old, the children were accompanied my their parents. A lot of the books were to get the kids a supplement to what they learn in school. There was a lot of material about learning English. And I saw some old favorites:
There were lots of activities to get the children excited about reading.
Hall 1 was the biggest with books from all over the world, but of course mostly for the Chinese reading public. It was impossible to cover the entire space, even just ignoring the Chinese only publishers. There were also some board games for sale.
And some 1000 year old scrolls from when literary works had a publishing count of 1.
The last Hall I went to was the young peoples works. Anime, Manga, Cosplay, comics, ... all the things I don't understand. But it was the most popular place with so many young that it was hard to move. Once inside it took me a long time to reach the exit.
Tucson and Taipei have some similarities. There is also a big bookfest here in March. It's a huge event that drew 100,000 people last year. Authors come from all over the country to participate in panel discussions and to give lectures on their books. I think you'd like it, too.
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