The New York Times Book Fair
Atlantic readers planning to be in New York in November would do well to include the Book Fair in their itinerary
AT Rockefeller Center from November 5 to 19 the New York Times, in coöperation with the National Association of Book Publishers, will stage a Book Fair. It will be a comprehensive exhibition of books and bookmaking on a scale never before attempted in this country. Forty-one publishers will have individual exhibits of their books past and present, thus affording a panorama of American literature from the earliest days. In addition there will be special features to entertain and to relate reading with everyday life.
On stepping from the escalator to the mezzanine floor of the International Building at 630 Fifth Avenue, the visitor will pay an admission charge of twenty-five cents and will pass through, on his right, a gallery lined with bookstalls containing old books of every description, in the manner of the Left Bank in Paris. In a small room off the end of this ’Seine Space’ the American Institute of Graphic Arts will have a display of the fine art of book design. Farther on will be a model home library decorated and furnished in the modern manner and lined with bookcases. A model bookshop, jointly managed by several New York booksellers, will have its stock of books classified according to subjects. An adjoining information booth will attempt to answer any questions whatsoever relating to books. The largest room of the group, one which will undoubtedly attract more visitors than any other, will contain a complete manufacturing exhibit from wood pulp to printed and bound volume. Smaller rooms will contain an exhibit by the New York Public Library showing its extensive service in the metropolitan area, a display of children’s books of all publishers, and a room given over to sports and hobbies. The publishers will compete for the attention of the crowd in seven other rooms of various sizes.
Throughout the duration of the Fair there will be afternoon and evening lecture sessions in the auditorium. Many authors whose books have been in the public eye this year will speak on the art and technique of writing in their individual fields. John Gunther, whose Inside Europe has been revised to include the Blum régime and the irregularities in Spain, will be there. So will be Dr. Lin Yutang (My Country and My People), such varied literary workers as Christopher Morley, Hendrik Willem Van Loon, and Cornelia Otis Skinner, novelists Elizabeth Corbett, Margaret Ayer Barnes, Robert Nathan, and Hervey Allen, and others equally notable.
The Fair has been designed to interest, not to ‘sell,’the public. No books will be sold, all orders taken being cleared through booksellers. School and college groups will be admitted free during the morning hours. Visitors to New York in November should watch the newspapers for the lecture programmes.
S. P