When the curtain came down on the 26th National Book Expo, in the city of Baotou, Inner Mongolia, on July 30, it had seen transactions worth more than 4 billion yuan ($603 million), with more than 1.5 million books sold right on the spot, the organizers report.

This three-day event had delegations from 41 province and city-level organizations taking part, with 860 publishers and book dealers to participate as well as 22 celebrities such as Yu Qiuyu, Yang Hongying and Yan Chongnian who lent a helping hand to this year's reader meetings. As an even more upbeat note, several dozen publishers from across China gave 130,000 books, covering many different fields, to the city of Baotou.