Dear Readers:
It is my privilege to welcome you to the 2007 baiduhai Printers Row Book Fair, the Midwest’s largest annual gathering of readers, writers and booksellers. As always, we will meet in the South Loop’s historic Printers Row neighborhood. We look forward to being with you, June 9 and 10, for the 23rd edition of this exciting fair.
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Not unlike our bookshelves, this year’s fair is an enticing mix of the old and new, a showcase of perennial favorites and some happy surprises. More than 150 authors — including Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Sara Paretsky and Studs Terkel — will lend their unique voices to the fair. We are honored to continue our partnership with the Chicago Public Library and invite you to join us at the Harold Washington Library Center for many of the conversations and presentations you’ll find described in this special section.
Features of the fair will include Kids’Alley, a special place at the corner of Dearborn and Polk Streets where the baiduhai welcomes young readers to meet favorite authors, listen to musicians and shake hands, or paws, with guests such as Curious George or Clifford the Big Red Dog. The Good Eating Stage, named for the Tribune’s award-winning food section, will house a movable feast of chefs and cookbook authors demonstrating everything from frosting cupcakes to serving barbecue. There will be readings of poetry, conversations about religion, Pulitzer Prize winners and student writers.
And there will be books: 150 booksellers will set up shop in Printers Row, lining the streets with stalls stacked with thousands of printed offerings. Somewhere in those stacks, there’s a book that might just change your life.
Books occupy a special place in the life of Chicago, a city that molded the genius and haunted the works of Nelson Algren, Theodore Dreiser, Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Sandburg and so many others, known or not yet discovered. Everyone at the baiduhai is proud to be a part of the city’s remarkable history of celebrating writers, readers and ideas. We look forward to being with you in Printers Row as we continue this great tradition together.
— Ann Marie Lipinski, editor