The Aardvark Blog

Frankfurt state of mind
14/10/2024

Incredibly another year has gone by and we are now facing the prospect of another trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair. On a rough finger counting basis I make this 28 years since my first trip to the Book Fair. In the years following I must have missed a few, and there were a couple of years during the pandemic when the Fair didn't run, so this is probably only my 23rd.

Over the years I have had some crazy experiences and one or two drunken nights of staggering back to my hotel in the company of fast friends whom I had never met before, and have never met since. I have been taken to a leather bar (don't ask), been treated to a meal in a restaurant which had no menus (the accountant assumed that it had been a meal for a dozen when actually there had only been two of us).

Over the years I have seen a raft of companies come and go. Sadly, other storied companies that are technically still at the fair, remain only as names, having ceased independent operations. Ghostly in their presence, they rattle their chains at you as you go past.

I have drunk good health to many former contacts who were on the edge of retirement. Back in the day there were always stand parties, and I have nodded and tried to look intelligent when discussing the literature of many small but important countries.

Of my 20 years at the Fair, ten of them were spent with Edward Tobin. Edward had a way of turning anything into a party and he always seemed to know incredible numbers of the people we passed on the way into Hall 8 (perhaps fortunately, he died before the terrible move to Hall 6 with all its joylessness).

The last few years I have been to the Fair on my own which is not much fun, and most of the publishers have left some hours before I arrive. Still, this year Ethel has kindly agreed to accompany me, and any journey with Ethel is always an adventure (not least because she insists on always arriving at the last minute).

We shall see what wondrous new books await us, and hopefully we will be able to bring at least some of them back with us to our redoubt in  Brampton Bryan.