Are you going to the fair?

One of my favourite songs is the Simon and Garfunkel rendition of Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine…

There was something about the beauty of the music sung so purely by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, combined with the pathos set out in the lyrics of the impossible tasks set to the would-be lover.

The original was based on a traditional Northern English ballad, with the melody having been “collected from Mark Anderson (1874–1953), a retired lead miner from England in 1947.” *

County fairs have been a major factor in English life for centuries, and English literature reflected this. Who remembers the Thomas Hardy novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, wherein a young man sells his wife and infant daughter at a country fair? Or the Laura Ingalls Wilder book, Farmer Boy, which tells the story of the family travelling to a fair to see who would win the blue ribbon for the largest pumpkin? (Yes, those were indeed simpler times.)

The thread running through all of these is the gathering together of the community to celebrate – well, whatever. The May Day fairs which celebrated spring and the awakening of life. The harvest fairs to celebrate the harvest and its abundance. Winter fairs for trade which later turned into Christmas fairs.

Why am I musing on all of this, I’m sure you wonder. It’s because I’m sitting here at my desk currently preparing for two book fairs (details below!) which are indeed gatherings. Gatherings of the many of us who love books: the serious collectors, the readers, the booksellers, the writers, the publishers.

Given the sad fact that the number of used and antiquarian bookstores continues to shrink rather grow, there are fewer and fewer places that booklovers can go to find the books they love and commune with fellow bibliophiles. Book fairs fill this need, and this is why I love exhibiting at the fairs. To meet with customers either new or well-known, to see colleagues I rarely see except at the fairs, and – always! – to see books I’ve never seen before.

So, please visit our virtual booth at the ViaLibri Virtual Showcase which opens May 20^th , and, if your schedules allow, at the in-person Rose City Book and Paper Fair on June 13^th and 14^th. And, for future fairs, keep an eye on the "Events tab on our web site!

* Information and quote from Wiki