Visitors shop for books at the fair. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Bookshelves and temporary stalls lined the paths beneath the trees at Beijing's Ditan Park, or the Temple of Earth park, with stacks of books spread across tables as workers arranged titles and put the finishing touches on their booths ahead of the annual Ditan Book Fair, which opened on Thursday.

The fairground was still quiet during a media preview on Wednesday, but the general layout of the 11-day event was already taking form. More than 500 booths have been set up across the park, making this the largest edition of the fair yet.

The scale is bigger than ever, but the books are hard to miss. About 80 percent of the booths are devoted to books, while a separate area for cultural and creative products has been set up near the eastern side of the park's north gate.

For all the ways the annual event has grown, one thing remains clear: Books still take the center stage.
 
The shelves offer a broad mix, from new releases and popular titles to specialist books, foreign-language originals and old editions. Alongside major publishing houses are smaller publishing brands and specialty bookstores, adding more variety to what readers can browse.

That balance, a bigger fair without letting books fade into the background, is at the heart of this year's event. It is less about adding more things around books than about putting more books in front of more readers, and giving them the chance to stop, browse and discover something unexpected.

Beyond bestseller list

The annual fair, which will run through September 27, has become a familiar fixture of Beijing's cultural calendar. For 11 days, Ditan Park turns into a sprawling open-air book market, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors and giving the city's readers a place to browse far beyond the usual bookstore shelves.
In 2025, the fair drew about 550,000 visits, with visitors spending more than three hours there on average. Some came prepared to stay a while, even bringing suitcases to carry their books home.
 
With books now easier than ever to find and order online, the Book Fair offers a different kind of experience: the chance to browse without knowing exactly what you will find.

At this year's event, the exhibition area covers more than 20,000 square meters, the largest in the fair's history. More than 500 booths bring together over 400 publishers, publishing organizations and specialty bookstores across nine themed sections, ranging from new and established titles to old books, foreign-language originals, family reading and cultural and creative products.
 
At a large book fair, the most recognizable publishers naturally attract attention. However, the browsing experience becomes more interesting when familiar titles share space with books that readers may never have encountered online.

According to the organizers, the presence of specialty books has been increased to make up about 10 percent of the books on display.

They include ancient books, academic works and titles focusing on local culture, categories that do not necessarily dominate commercial bestseller lists but can attract readers with very specific interests.
The same idea is visible in the foreign-language originals section, which has expanded this year to around 8,000 titles.

The selection ranges from children's books and literature to social sciences and art books. A large number of new titles are making their debut at the Ditan fair, while books in less widely spoken languages are also represented.
 
Two major international publishing groups, Walker Books and Macmillan Publishers, are appearing together at the fair for the first time, bringing a selection of original-language titles, including well-known children's books and award-winning works.
 
But the foreign-language section is not presented as a separate world from the rest of the fair.

It sits alongside Chinese-language books, popular titles, specialist works and books from smaller publishers.
At the specialty bookstore section, shop owners were bringing carefully selected titles of their own. Some had made hand-drawn cards to go along with their books, while others displayed their own reading lists and reviews, giving their booths a distinctly personal touch.

People visit the Ditan Book Fair on September 17, 2026. Photo: VCG

Joy of browsing

If the new-book stalls invite readers to discover something unfamiliar, the "Old Books, New Knowledge" section offers a different kind of browsing, where patience and chance can lead to unexpected finds.

The "Old Books, New Knowledge" section has expanded this year to 38 booths, bringing together 15 exhibitors from Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Jiangsu and other parts of China.
 
"This year, we've brought tens of thousands of old books, collectible editions and discounted titles, as well as cultural and creative items," Liu Yichen, deputy general manager of the China Bookstore, told the Global Times.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the 24 Solar Terms being inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. To mark the occasion, China Bookstore has selected dozens of classic works tracing the development of the 24 Solar Terms from their early origins to their full development.
  The section also features a special exhibition on the 24 Solar Terms, along with an exhibition of rare books.

"Ditan itself was once part of the imperial complex, and we hope more readers can experience the appeal of imperial book printing in such a setting," Liu said.

The fair offers plenty of reasons to stay, too. More than 150 cultural events are scheduled this year, covering literature, social sciences, science popularization and other subjects.

It will also extend beyond Beijing as part of broader cultural exchange across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. From September 25 to October 2, the fair will travel to Baoding, Hebei Province, followed by Tianjin from October 1 to October 7.
 
Still, at Ditan Park, all roads lead back to the books: a title spotted between the shelves, a few pages turned, and sometimes a book that has never been on the shopping list making its way home.