I visited the Printers' Row Book Fair yesterday in Chicago. It's located in the South Loop (I think it's characterized as that) on Dearborn Street between Congress and Polk Streets, and it's been going on for years. But I've never made it down there until this year. This year, while my family was visiting the Olde Town Art Fair and the Lincoln Park Art Festival, I walked and cabbed it south to LaSalle and Congress, then made my way into the fest.

Printer's Row is an area where I guess many print shops and enterprises had set up operations in the past. Then it became a fairly empty area, and finally it was renovated and gentrified to become the hip, happening area it is today, with many nice restaurants and pubs and some eclectic businesses, including some bookstores. It makes sense that Chicago would hold this fair (mainly sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, I believe) in this area.

The Fair itself was loaded with tents housing bookstores from the area. Most of them appeared to be used book dealers. Some were antiquarian booksellers. Some had run of the mill paperbacks and hardcovers for reasonable prices, if a bit more than I'd spend at the used bookstore down the street from my office.

I would have preferred a bigger focus on authors and publishers, with a little less emphasis on booksellers. There were some publishers with presences there; three University presses (Northwestern, Chicago and Illinois) were there, each taking up an entire tent. Echelon Press, who publishes local author Luisa Buehler (I blogged about a mystery I read by her not too long ago), was there. The Mystery Writers of America had a tent all to themselves. There were a few others also. Then there were a few individual authors with tables set up along the street, and some authors signing at their publishers' tents.

But it is what it is, and for a book lover and avid reader like me (not to mention a wannabe writer), it was a lot of fun. After I made my second pass around the tents, I sat down in the main stage area to watch some entertainment. There were a handful of entertainment stages going on throughout the weekend.

It took me a couple hours to go through the entire fest, and then I cabbed it back up north (right after the rains hit) and met up with my family at the Olde Town Art Fair on Wells Street between Division and North Avenue. They had plenty of food and plenty of interesting artists and artisans. There was also some entertainment at their stages.

But no books. I prefer the books.

*****