A Rare Book Fair for Atlantans sounds like smart idea to dealers, organizers

“Whenever we set up at a book fair — and all the dealers do this — we all go around, and we look at each other’s books,” Ware says. “There’s an excitement about it.”

That excitement — which is building for the inaugural Atlanta Rare Book Fair, Friday (preview night) through Sunday on Oglethorpe University’s campus — comes in part because these fairs offer a chance for book collectors and book dealers to connect directly.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Fine Book Fairs

Credit: Photo courtesy of Fine Book Fairs

“A lot of these dealers don’t have physical stores, and they don’t have websites,” explains Edward Lemon, assistant director of Fine Book Fairs, a firm that organizes book fairs across the country. “So often, the only time you can actually find this material is at the book fair. So, there is that kind of romantic vulnerability that you don’t know what you can expect to find, and you can browse and find something that excites you.”

Lemon adds that book fairs involve dozens of dealers, all with different specialties and interests — from American history to out-of-print sci-fi novels to Russian historical documents to comic books — that they are excited to share with customers.

“You wouldn’t often have that range of material available in a bookstore,” he says.

Lemon and his wife, Eve, a Brookhaven native and the director of Fine Book Fairs, have been running book fairs for four years, and he says that Atlanta was a natural choice when they were looking for a new city to add to their roster.

“We thought about the major cities in the United States that don’t have a rare book fair, and Atlanta stood out as being low-hanging fruit,” he says, explaining that the city’s appeal came from its many universities and museums, distinct cultural and historic heritage and large, educated population.

The fair’s venue, Oglethorpe University, ticked a lot of boxes, too. “We like to try and do our events in historic spaces that match up with the books — aesthetically interesting spaces that complement the material we’re offering,” Lemon says. “It’s a beautiful space, obviously — a historic college, a beautiful campus.”

Credit: Photo courtesy of Fine Book Fairs

Credit: Photo courtesy of Fine Book Fairs

Atlanta’s book dealers are just as excited to have a rare book fair in the city. “When we first bought the store, we went to some (shows) out of town, and it’s really fun,” says Jan Bolgla, owner of Atlanta Vintage Books, a busy, labyrinthine store on Clairmont Road. 

As the store gained popularity, though, it made less sense for Bolgla and her late husband Bob Roarty to pack up and leave for days at a time. “It isn’t always cost-effective owning a storefront and going out and doing a show,” she says. “But we like to be supportive of shows in Atlanta, always.”

She explains that staff have printed out flyers with directions to the store, roughly a mile away, in case someone’s looking for something they have at their brick-and-mortar location.

Dealers who don’t have storefronts, like Ball and Ware, have well-tested book fair routines they’ll put to use for The Atlanta Rare Book Fair. For instance, Ware had a set of wooden bookshelves with handle cutouts made for book shows.

“You can carry the books in them. Then you can flip them on one side, and they become bookshelves, and you can stack them at the book fair,” Ball explains. When it’s time to leave, they just reverse the process, and any books that don’t sell need never be unpacked or reshelved between events.

Ball and Ware also have the task of choosing which books to bring down to a science. “Usually what I pick are the more unusual, the more expensive and the more recent (books),” Ware explains.

This time, they plan to bring a copy of “Because of Winn-Dixie” with a drawing by author Kate DiCamillo on the title page; a trio of unrelated lesbian pulp novels titled “Strange Women,” “Three Women” and “Three Strange Women”; and the first two installments of the book dealer murder mystery series they’re writing under the pseudonym Lily Charles: “Murder at the Estate Sale” and “Murder at the Book Fair.”

Credit: Photo courtesy of Fine Book Fairs

Credit: Photo courtesy of Fine Book Fairs

One of the youngest booth hosts at this year’s fair is 21-year-old photographer Timofey Abel, founder of Atlanta independent publisher Odesa Publishing. Abel founded the company in 2025 after months of negotiating with traditional publishers and being asked to give up an uncomfortable amount of creative control. Now that he’s about to release his — and Odesa’s — first book, a collection of his photographs, he’s ready to share what he’s learned with other young artists at the book fair.

“Honestly, the biggest thing of all time that I want is for younger people to come to the book fair and see me,” says Abel, who hopes to set an example of what’s possible for independent artists.

The Lemons are doing their best to turn rare book fairs into the kind of environment that will draw the audience that Abel is seeking.

“Often we do have a lot of younger people,” Lemon says. “We do a lot of advertising and engagement on social media. He adds that niche tags such as Bookstagram and BookTok have big impact. 

“We try and make our fairs appealing to younger people, both with the kind of materials on offer and the price points. There’ll be things at the fair for $10, $5 — up to $10,000 and $50,000,” he says. “You don’t need to have a huge budget to come in. Everyone can come in and buy something that they want, and that’s important to us.”

IF YOU GO

The Atlanta Rare Book Fair

Preview night: 5-8:30 p.m. Friday ($40). 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday ($15, $10 students, free for under 16). Turner Lynch Campus Center, Oglethorpe University, 4484 Peachtree Road NE, Brookhaven. finefairs.com/atlanta.

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Rachel Wright  has a Ph.D. from Georgia State University and an master’s degree from the University College Dublin, both in creative writing. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She is at work on a novel.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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