Wednesday, October 16, 2013

My Trip to Berlin & Frankfurt Book Fair 2013

Hello fabulous readers,

I'm back from my involuntary blogging break of two weeks. In the beginning of October I spent five days in Berlin with three of my best friends. We did a lot of sightseeing and shopping. We went to a large store with an epic selection of movies and English books (epic for German proportions). I got a copy of CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein and PURE by Julianna Baggott. Heard so many great things about both books! Here's what my time in Berlin looked like. 




After the five-hour train journey we set out to explore Berlin. We went to the old National Gallery and strolled through the Lustgarten in front of the Berlin dome. On our second day we took a Reichstag tour and climbed its glass dome. The holocaust memorial, its info center and the Brandenburg Gate were highlights, too.




The Eastside Gallery displays only a small part of the original Wall which artists sprayed with colorful paintings and messages. It was impressive and shocking to see with my own eyes that something like the Berlin Wall once existed and separated many families and friends.




 Doesn't Berlin at night look great? Many sights and buildings were colorfully illuminated. My favourite place was a pond with paper-boat-like light installations.




When you stay in Berlin you should also plan in a trip to Potsdam with its beautiful Sanssouci Palace and its park. I wouldn't name Berlin one of my favourite cities, but it is a city with many facets and I'll make sure to come back soon. 



Frankfurt Book Fair


And then came the Frankfurt Book Fair! This year marked the fourth in a row that I went to my favourite book event of the year. I'm still wanting to attend BEA next year (like every year ha!).
I stayed for Saturday and Sunday in Frankfurt and my first destination was Hall 8, where many English publishers are located. I found: Harper Collins, Egmont, Bloomsbury, Random House, Macmillan, Bonnier, Simon & Schuster, Harlequin Teen, Sourcebooks, Walker, Scholastic and Penguin. 
Some were happy to hand out review copies, others only sold their books and very few didn't give away (for review or sale) any books at all which is too mean if you spot books that you are dying to read. My favourite publishers this year were Penguin, the Bonnier Group, Sourcebooks and definitely Scholastic.

I met many Rights people and there were so many good-looking men supervising the booths. And while I was adirming all the wonderful Sourcebooks titles, I saw a familiar face approaching the same booth, Danny from Bewitched Bookworms (www.bewitchedbookworms.com)! It was the best book fair surprise of the year because I've been wanting to meet her for ages. You know she's an awesome blogger and so lovely in person. 
Unfortunately I didn't meet everyone I wanted to meet, but on Sunday I met a bunch of German bloggers. I had so much fun hanging out with you, Sandy (www.nightingale-blog.net), Crini (www.itsallaboutbooks.de), Natasha (www.kattiesbooks.wordpress.com) and Eva (www.evaspiecesoflife.blogspot.de) ! x

I also went to a Cecilia Ahern signing and got my mother a signed copy of her newest book. So I came back home with aching shoulders and feet....oh, and four bags filled with books, catalogues and swag.



At the Harper Collins booth I got copies of Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris, The Fall of Five by Pittacus Lore, Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell, Geek Girl by Holly Smale, Model Misfit by Holly Smale and A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin.



Thanks to Macmillan for the review copy of Thirteen by Tom Hoyle. At the Egmont stand I bought copies of Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, Revived by Cat Patrick, The Originals by Cat Patrick and By Any Other Name by Laura Jarratt.



The YA lady from the Penguin booth was so kind to give me copies of Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano, Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston and The Lonesome Young by Lucy Connors. And Simon & Schuster gave me Stormbringers by Philippa Gregory and Fire with Fire by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian.


 

In the picture above you see what I got from Random House, Hot Key Books and Sourcebooks. The ladies from the Bonnier Group and the Sourcebooks booth were so kind and cheerful. Thanks so much! So I got The Elites by Natasha Ngan and Racing Savannah by Miranda Kenneally. I grabbed five books at the Random House booth. Relic by Heather Terrell, The Eye of Minds by James Dashner, The Kissing Booth by Beth Reekles, Teardrop by Lauren Kate and Passion by Lauren Kate.



Wow, the Scholastic Team was extremely generous. Thank you for all the books you gave me. The two boxed sets of the Shiver and The Hunger Games trilogy look so beautiful. In addition I got the movie tie-in edition of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater, Defriended by Ruth Baron , The Drowning by Rachel Ward, Numbers by Rachel Ward, The Hit by Melvin Burgess and Wild Born by Brandon Mull.


So that was my Frankfurt Book Fair 2013 experience. I'll be definitely attending in 2014, too.



Q! Have you been to a book fair this year? Please link me to your posts or tell me about it in the comment section! 

12 comments:

  1. I'm glad that you had so much fun in Germany and welcome back to blogging.

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  2. Sounds like a very fun trip! And you came away with a whole lot of books! I wish we had a book fair like that over here.

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  3. Holy, moly... that's a lot of books :)
    You sure had an awesome time at FBM! And I'm glad there are other people who enjoyed hall 8.0. We probably walked by each other a zillion times :D

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  4. Welcome back. I love Berlin! And it sounds like you had a great time there :D You also got some awesome looking books, happy reading!

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  5. What the... I mean I got a lot of books on the book fair, too, but this is just crazy xD So to answer the question YES I've been to a book fair. The one you obviously also went to :P Also been there last year and I'm planning on going there every single freaking year of my life xD

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  6. Looks like an awesome trip to Berlin and so cool that you met Danny at the fair! Wow - that Shiver box set looks nice! :)

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  7. Ich erwähne hier auch nochmal das es so toll war dich kennen zu lernen und so lustig mit dir viel zu viele Bücher zu ergattern :D Wobei... zu viele gibts ja eigentlich auch nicht, oder? ;) Bin bei einigen schon sehr auf deine Meinung gespannt. :)

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  8. I so wish I could have been there! All the tweets about the fair were making me jealous. ;) It's great that you managed to get your hands on some good titles. I spy a few of my favourites there, including Unbreakable, The Dream Thieves and Rose Under Fire. Hope you enjoy reading them all! :)

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  9. Oh, no book fair in my country and this Frankfurt book fair! All my bosses go to this fair every year... sighs... Awesome pics too and I can't wait to read Fire by Fire :3

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  10. Oh my...that is an awesome load of books! I've been to the Book Fair as well so maybe I've seen you without noticing :D You can find my entry about it here: http://booksandsenses.blogspot.de/2013/10/mein-ganz-personlicher-und-emotionaler.html

    So see you next year, maybe :D

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  11. Du warst ja in Berlin! Und bei Dussmann :D Schön, dass es dir gefallen hat :)

    Auf der Messe haben wir uns nur ganz kurz gesehen, weiß nicht, ob du das mitbekommen hast, war ein großer Bloggerhaufen in Halle 8 am Sonntag ;) Wir wollten dann noch weiter woanders hin. Schade, dass wir uns verpasst haben. Hätte mich gern ein bisschen mit dir unterhalten. Bei der nächsten Messe dann hoffentlich :D

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  12. Wow, what a great haul of books!!! Awesome. We don't have that many book fairs here in my country... Lucky you...

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