Going to the Leipzig book fair

Sunrise on the Karl-Marx-Allee

About half a year ago I got back into reading. I started to devour books, watching booktube and got involved with fandoms again. Also around that time I proposed the idea of going to the Leipzig book fair to a friend, who is as equally into books as I am. At that point I did not expect us to actually go. But in January the idea rose back up and we started planning our trip. We found more people and bought our tickets, then in a blink of an eye the day of LBM came.

We met crazy early at a train station outside of Berlin. Luckily on of the girls coming has a car and offered to drive to Leipzig. The car journey flew by ridiculously fast and was enriched by us singing and the snacks that each of us brought. Then the fairground came to sight. We were worried about finding parking but it was unjustified, because of us coming so early we caught a spot close to the entrance.

A friend of mine visited the fair on Thursday and warned us, that there might be a queue at the entrance because of extensive luggage control. In this case we also were lucky: no queuing for us, we could just walk through luggage control and onto the fairground.

We hadn’t made any plans on what we wanted to see, so we decided to just walk through every hall and look at everything. First we went to hall 2. There were the children and young adult books. Emphasis on children’s books since there were not nearly as many YA books as we hoped. However, we still had a lot of fun walking through the booths and looking at beautifully illustrated children’s books. Since we arrived at 10:00 when the fair opened, it was not extremely full yet. That made walking through the biggest hall way more pleasant.

After we finished marvelling at all the beautiful books in hall 2, we decided, that it was time for a second breakfast. We ate in the entrance hall, which is completely made out of glass and also very pretty. After our snack we made our way to hall 3. At this point it also started to fill up and navigating through the narrow spaces between the booths got harder.

The entrance to heaven on earth  (for a booklover)

Hall 3 was filled with adult fiction, educational books and art. Especially the art part of the fair was stunning. At this point we all started to crash, the early morning and the sheer number of people just were a bit much. So we took another break in the “best designed book” booth. As you could probably guess: the books there were all designed very beautifully. Hall 3 was overall amazing. But sadly it was so crowded and loud, that talking to each other got hard.  

After hall 3 we made our way to hall 1. Hall 1 is not necessarily part of the book fair, as it holds the manga and anime convention. A few years back I was really, really into manga and the whole culture around it, so it was interesting to revisit something that held so much meaning to me a while back. There were amazing cosplays all around and every booth was filled with figurines, stuffed animals and of cause manga. The place I liked most was the artist corner. When I was active in the Manga community, I was an artist predominately. I saw so many people that I used to know, traded pictures with and admired. It made me very proud to see some of the people, that started drawing around the same time as me, succeeding in their craft.

After hall 1 we were completely tired out and decided to drive back home. The drive went by equally fast as the drive to Leipzig and was spend having political and literary discussions.

Overall it was an absolutely fantastic day. The LBM is worth a visit for everyone that likes books and/or manga. I can’t wait to go back again next year. Maybe then not just for a day but for the whole week.

Truer words have never been spoken