Monday 16 June 2014

Our Friends Electric

E-books have something sort of inherently 80s about them, don't you think? They're a shiny new thing made of electronics, like all 80s music. Created in a spirit of optimism and distancing themselves from the previous generation, but maybe not reinventing quite everything. So it's only fitting that Berlin's first ever Electric Book Fair is being held in Wedding, at the 80s-licious Supermarkt.

It's this coming Saturday, all day long, combining talks and presentations and events with stalls, I believe, where you can chat to makers of electric books. Like your old school fair in the 80s, only without the country dancing. And it's also free, like all those parties on the South Bank when Thatcher closed down the GLC. I don't quite understand what will happen, so I'm just going to go along and see. There's all sorts of electrifying things on the programme, including an Electric Café and Electric Drinking (which I don't remember us having in the 80s unless you count Sodastream, which is not strictly electric). And publishing's answer to Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer – Richard Nash and Elisabeth Ruge – will be there too.

Berlin being the beating heart of the e-book world, it will be like having all the stars from Band Aid and USA for Africa in one room, just before they were famous. So rock down to Electric Avenue this weekend, kids.

No comments: