?

The Shanghai Book Fair kicks off on Wednesday morning at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. [Photo by Cheng Liang/for chinadaily.com.cn]

The Shanghai Book Fair kicked off on Wednesday at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. The 17th edition of the fair will run till Aug 18.

Due to pandemic control measures, the daily visitor cap for this year's event will be 18,000 - 9,000 from 9 am to 5 pm, and 9,000 from 6 pm to 9 pm. Visitors have to make reservations ahead of the time and verify their identity before entering the premises.

More than 700 events, including book launches, lectures and other events will take place at this year's fair. Many of the events will be held online on various social media and video-sharing platforms.

The book fair, held every summer since 2003, has endeared itself to many local residents. Among those who braved the queues was 80-year-old Wang Ailing, who said that despite today's digital reading solutions, browsing a book at a physical store or at such a fair still holds much charm.

"My grandchild was in kindergarten when I first came to the fair. The kid is now in college," she said. "I will surely come again next year."

Another visitor, Zhou Ming, a retiree and avid collector of vintage Lianhuanhua, a Chinese form of picture story books, share the same sentiment about reading physical books.

"These are re-printed editions of vintage Lianhuanhua books and the price is a bit high," he said, while flipping through the pages of a picture book. "I will buy some anyway. It is better than buying on the web, where you just key in a title and search for a book…you will not be able to feel the pages and check its condition that way."