The opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair

On October 3rd the world's biggest book fair opened in Frankfurt on Main. Joachim Güntner doesn't agree with the director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Jürgen Boos, who claims the fair has become "even more glamorous". "I beg to disagree with the director's self-satisfied interpretation. Neither his florid opening speech, full of empty phrases, nor the amateurish organisation of the event had anything glamorous about it… This mish-mash of old and new, nostalgia and futurism, makes it difficult to discern a single trend at the Frankfurt Book Fair. If you want to grow you have to be greedy. The fair has a great appetite for products and themes… And incidentally, we think financial motivation is entirely legitimate. But this legitimacy can't quite banish the melancholy we feel when we watch the desperate retail book trade trying to broaden its appeal to the public by expanding its product range and seeking salvation in supplementary products like stationary, key rings and candles."

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