Fine Book Fairs will host its first event of the year at Oglethorpe University in Brookhaven, Feb. 27 through March 1, marking its first fair in Atlanta.
“There will be things there that belong in a museum, but there’ll also be plenty of things that people can walk out with, from postcards to books, paperbacks,” Edward Lemon, the assistant director of Fine Book Fairs, said.
With 24 exhibitors and vendors from all over the United States, including local favorites like Atlanta Vintage Books and Toadlily Books, the fair will feature a wide range of material at varying price points.
“Most book fairs are promoted by book sellers and book dealers, but we came at it as kind of, ‘what would we want as book collectors?’” Lemon said.
The answer was an opening night party kicking off each of their fairs, featuring beverages, food, and live music. On Friday, Feb. 27 at 5 p.m., attendees will have the opportunity to preview the vendors’ wares while enjoying beer and wine.
“We wanted to make it social and welcoming and fun,” Lemon said. “Because where better to be on a Friday night than drinking a glass of wine surrounded by thousands of books?”
In addition to the shopping experience, Fine Book Fairs will host two keynote speaker events with Kermit Roosevelt III, the great-great-grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt. A professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and the author of “The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story,” Roosevelt will discuss his great-great-grandfather’s legacy and “challenge the conventional narrative about America’s founding ideals,” according to Fine Book Fair’s website.
The first event, titled “America at 250,” will take place at Oglethorpe University on Saturday, Feb. 28. The second, on Sunday, March 1, will highlight former President Roosevelt’s southern roots, occurring off-campus in Roswell – the city where the former president’s mother was born.
Fine Book Fairs has southern roots, as well. Eve Lemon, the event founder, was born in Atlanta and later moved to Washington, D.C. According to Lemon, the company was created in 2022 to raise money for City Tavern, a historic building in Georgetown.
Since then, Fine Book Fairs has hosted dozens of events around the country, originally focusing on cities in the Northeast, but the Atlanta fair will be the first in the South. “I think [Atlanta] is a great town for universities, for libraries, for people interested in books,” Lemon said.
With the recent surge of online book spaces – like “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” – in the past decade, populated mostly by younger generations, Lemon feels that book collecting is more relevant than ever.
“I think there is really this embrace of material, paper culture,” Lemon said. “We want to make [the fair] welcoming for everyone and introduce people to the world of book collecting.”
For more information about the show, visit finefairs.com.