Christmas book fair at Lancaster Library

Book-dealers from all over the North West will be setting up their stalls in the library’s Meeting Room.

All types and genres of book will be on sale: from older, collectable volumes to carefully-used, good-as-new paperbacks.

Choose from natural history, transport, literature and cookery, to children’s and illustrated books or scarce antiquarian tomes.

Books and pamphlets on history, especially on the local history of the Lancaster area, will be a special feature.

There will also be a special display of rare and unusual library archive material, and a selection of classical CDs will be on sale.

The event marks the return of book fairs to Lancaster. Regular book fairs at the town hall and university were stopped a few years ago when it was thought the future lay in electronic books and online forms of publishing.

A few years later, a new generation of readers is rediscovering the value of real books as complementary to ebooks.

One of the organisers, Edward Huddleston , said: “Book fairs and book shops offer a shopping experience which is completely different from that online. “You can touch, browse and assess the condition of a book. You can find books that you didn’t know existed; or ones so rare they are not on sale online.

“You can sometimes also find a bargain!”

The book fair at Lancaster Library is on Saturday November 29, from 10am to 3.30pm.