Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association

According to the Booksellers Association, more than 60 bookshops opened in the UK and Ireland over the past 18 months, reflecting the rediscovery by many people of the pleasure of books during the pandemic despite the increase in online shopping.

An update from Jeremy Carson, organiser of PBFA’s Brighton Book Fair which will run at Brighton Racecourse (assuming it is not being used as a vaccination centre then…) on Saturday, October 30 – the first in Brighton for more than 20 years.

Organiser tells ATG why the south-coast city is a great place for a new PBFA event

The Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) is planning an unlimited succession of virtual fairs starting on the 29th of each month as it adapts to a world without traditional fairs.

A 1902 calendar from Hasegawa, Tokyo, filled with colourful illustrations and verse was among the sales at the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association’s (PBFA) first virtual fair.

For the first time this year, the four fairs that make London a destination for bibliophiles in June will be held side-by-side across the space of just four days. ATG looks at the personality of each event.

In ATG No 2380 February 23 I wrote a piece on the annual antiques fair held at Wilton House in Wiltshire from Friday to Saturday, March 8-10. It is worth noting that the Provincial Booksellers’ Association (PBFA) is running an antiquarian and out-of-print book fair at the Michael Herbert Hall in the village of Wilton on Sunday, March 10.

If you want to find something unusual in the book and ephemera line, then head to one of the fairs held by the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA).

This weekend Oxford hosts the PBFA’s 100-dealer antiquarian and out-of-print book premier fair, one of the largest in the association’s calendar. It is held at the Oxford Brookes Wheatley Campus on Saturday and Sunday, April 22-23.