Eight book dealers to feature at Johannesburg Book Fair
JOBURG – The book fair held at The View Boutique Hotel will feature a variety of antique books, posters and maps among other items.
The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, in partnership with book dealer James Findlay, will host a book fair to celebrate collectable books, posters and maps.
The book fair will be hosted at The View Boutique Hotel on 27 January from 9am to 12.30 midday at The View Boutique Hotel and will feature eight book dealers.
James Findlay, a book dealer based in Saxonwold said, “Aside from browsing through the collectible items there will also be a talk by writer Angus Douglas as well as a show and tell session where each person is given the opportunity to speak for five minutes about their bookcollections, whether they are a book dealer or collector.
“We’ve all got very different stock which is what makes it so nice because we’re not competing against each other because we all have different collectables and there’s a really nice variety.”
Findlay said the fair is a great opportunity to learn more about antique books as well as some other collections. “The internet is a great research tool but it’s so much nicer to have the original artefact in your hands.”
Some of the items on display will include maps dating back to the 1800s, struggle era posters from the 70s and 80s and signed fantasy books. The collections are not strictly antiques but rather interesting books, documents, posters and maps.
“Everyone has a story, the dealers might have a limited knowledge of something where as a collector in a specific field might have a superior knowledge so we also learn from them. It’s a whole ecosystem of customers and sellers because the customers themselves educate us as well.”
There have been several book fairs over the last few years, however, Findlay said they had become less frequent in the past year.
Findlay hopes that the foundation would be able to host book fairs more frequently throughout the year, on the last Saturday of every month.
Entrance to the fair is free.
