Maybe we didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I was kind of underwhelmed by the Ann Arbor Book Festival today. (It fills a portion of North University for a couple of days every year around this time.) There were a sizable number of people there, but nowhere near as many as I expected, and nobody seemed thrilled to be there; there was a lot of milling, very little excitement.

Of course, if you’ve seen one book fair, you’ve seen them all, I suppose. They’re mostly booths full of T-shirts and merchandising opportunities (as opposed to books). But is there some magic that this fair has that we were not plugged into? Or is this another case of the notorious Ann Arbor über-hype at work? I don’t know.

Update: Bentley points out that this is actually the first time the Book Festival (as an outdoor, pavilion-type event) has been held. The Ann Arbor Antiquarian Book Fair (which is held in Michigan Union on Sunday) is actually the event that’s been around for 26 years. This would explain much. Thanks for the clarification.