Zhang Yu JeniZhang13@163.com THE Fourth Shenzhen Book Fair, which offered residents a 10-day literary extravaganza, saw record highs in both visitors and book sales. The fair, which concluded Sunday, recorded over 1.1 million visits and saw books worth over 34.34 million yuan (US$4.79 million) sold in 10 days. Book sales were up by 24% over the previous year. According to the organizer, the fair, as an annual carnival to purchase books, has its main venue at the Shenzhen Book City CBD Store in Futian District and eight subvenues across the city. For the first time, the fair made a lively connection with the 2022 Shenzhen Bougainvillea Show, which is being held at Lianhua Hill Park, creating a delightful landscape fused with the city’s reading culture and natural scenery. Beautiful bougainvillea installations and flower walls adorned the square outside the Shenzhen Book City CBD Store, while a reading market was set up in Lianhua Hill Park’s Kite Square to expand the book fair into outdoor green spaces. Approximately 600 quality domestic publishers participated in this year’s book fair, with 1.59 million copies of 220,000 categories of books on display and for sale. In the exhibition area for children’s books, 47 well-known children’s book brands showed up with 140,000 copies of 11,000 categories of children’s books displayed and sold. The international exhibition area featured overseas publishing companies such as Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Ltd., Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group and Scholastic. Renowned scholars and writers such as Ge Jianxiong and Ma Boyong were invited to interact with book lovers through new book releases, book signings and cultural salons at the fair. Distinctive activities were also held at the eight subvenues across the city. For instance, the subvenues in Luohu, Nanshan, Bao’an, Longgang and Longhua districts highlighted parent-child reading, picture book reading, teen military fiction and literary classics, poetry and Chinese ancient civilization studies, respectively. | 