[In Photos] Shanghai Book Fair Returns Bigger, Better and Brimming With Books

The 2025 Shanghai Book Fair, part of the broader ‘Bookish China’ Shanghai Week, opened yesterday, bigger and more vibrant than ever, featuring thousands of titles and a packed lineup of events, to the delight of book lovers across the country.

For the first time, the fair is being held across two main venues, namely the Shanghai Exhibition Center in downtown Jing’an district as well as the Fuzhou Road branch of Shanghai Book City.

This year also sees the addition of a sub-venue in Wuzhen, the picturesque water town in Jiaxing, southeastern Zhejiang province. In addition, the Shanghai Exhibition Center has debuted an outdoor ‘Reading Night Market,’ offering a fresh cultural highlight for summer evenings.

The fair, which runs until Aug. 18, has introduced a ‘double main venue + X + N’ model. X refers to district-level branch venues at selected bookstores, libraries and other locations, while N comprises 46 practice centers for new-era civilization, which will become activity hubs in local communities.

Visitors walk around the ‘Reading Night Market’ located in the Shanghai Exhibition Center’s fountain square as well as its east and west gardens. The night market runs daily from 5.30 p.m. to 10.00 p.m., with extended hours until 10.30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16 and Saturday, Aug. 17.

Bookworms throng booths belonging to 23 time-honored publishers brought together by the China Publishing Group. With long-established names such as ‘Zhongzi’ and ‘Xinhua,’ they offer around 48,000 titles in nearly 4,000 categories.

A mother takes her child to view the more than 4,000 quality titles put on show by 12 publishing houses affiliated to Hunan Publishing Investment Holdings Group and China South Publishing & Media Group. The two publishing giants are also organizing 29 major events at the fair.

In the water town of Wuzhen, people gather at the Shanghai Book Fair sub-branch, which combines the book fair’s cultural resources with Wuzhen’s famous tourism scene. Featured activities include ‘the reading garden,’ ‘digital reading’ and ‘talks by renowned authors.’ The event also explores setting up cross-sector collaboration in the Yangtze River Delta through the crossover between culture, tourism and commerce.