Staff members at Beijing's Chaoyang Park, one of the main exhibition sites for the 2026 Beijing Book Fair, set up booths, on April 17, 2026. Photo: VCG

The 2026 Beijing Book Fair is set to kick off on Saturday and will run till May 17. For the first time, the annual event has been extended to a full month, offering residents and visitors a citywide spring cultural feast infused with the fragrance of books, one of the organizers of the book fair told the Global Times on Friday. 

The book fair will open simultaneously on Saturday at four venues located in the east, south, west, and north of the capital, namely Chaoyang Park, Nanyuan Forest and Wetland Park, Shougang Park, and Yuanmingyuan Ruins Park, according to Capital Culture Technology Group Co (CCTG), one of the organizers of the event.  

Some 2,000 brick-and-mortar bookstores across the city will also participate as coordinated venues, making it the country's first large-scale public cultural event centered on the participation of brick-and-mortar bookstores. A total of 6 million yuan ($879,100) of book purchase vouchers will be distributed, Ji Wenyue, a publicity officer at CCTG, told the Global Times on Friday. 

The fair is part of the efforts to promote public reading and cultivate a book-loving society during the inaugural national reading week. China's newly released Regulation on the Promotion of Nationwide Reading, which took effect on February 1, designates the fourth week of April each year as national reading week, encouraging reading activities nationwide.

The inaugural national reading week also coincides with the 16th Beijing International Film Festival, making the cross-industry integration of "film + reading" a major highlight of this year's event. A dedicated film-themed book section will be set up at the book fair, alongside a special exhibition titled "Where Literature Meets Cinema," according to Ji. 

Visitors who present ticket stubs from the film festival screenings will be able to collect discount vouchers at the four main venues and enjoy reduced prices on book purchases, according to the organizer. 

Guo Fei, a Beijing resident, told the Global Times that she intends to take her 8-year-old daughter to visit the wetland park. "It would be interesting to read books at a wetland park. You're surrounded by reeds, water, and birdsong rather than walls and shelves. It's quiet, open, and immersed in nature. You're not just reading a book, you're kind of living in the moment with it," said Guo.

The Nanyuan Forest Wetland Park centers on a "nature + family reading" theme, featuring leisure and reading activities - allowing visitors to enjoy the pleasure of books and nature in a lush, green setting, the Beijing News reported. 

The Yuanmingyuan venue will focus on the exhibition and sale of books on traditional culture and history, along with a range of cultural and creative products. 

The Chaoyang Park and Shougang Park will feature a rich lineup of performances, from traditional Chinese opera to modern drama, and from folk music to family-friendly acrobatics, allowing visitors to encounter the arts amid the atmosphere of books, Ji noted. 

The third national antiquarian book fair will be held concurrently. Representatives from antiquarian bookstores across 10 provinces and cities, including Shanghai, Tianjin, Hebei, Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces will gather for the event, the organizer said. 

More than 500 activities will be held during the fair across Beijing, such as author autograph sessions, cultural lectures, themed exhibitions, and cultural creative products markets, the organizer said.