Here are a few images from the recently-concluded Frankfurt Book Fair, starting with the positive:

This is the main China Forum, where many of the big-ticket events took place. It was well designed, well-lit, interesting to look at, and while most of the displays featured the usual subjects ("trace the transmission of printing technology from China to your country!"), they were the usual subjects done well.

The actual China stand, on the other hand, was dismally familiar: they essentially uprooted the offerings from the Beijing Book Fair and shipped them over wholesale.

They've got every book you could possibly want about China, provided that what you want is a history of Ming dynasty garb, or a detailed history of the development of the cardboard industry in Guangzhou. Basically it was the typical "welcome to know more about China's 5,000 years of glorious history" approach.

If I had came all the way to Frankfurt expecting to learn about China from the offerings on this stand, I would be annoyed.

The Frankfurt fairgrounds: brought to you by the Society of Knot-Theory Mathematicians and the Hamster Disorientation/Demotivation Research Kitchen.