Pop-up events showcase rare literary treasures around the globe

This Thursday, antiquarian book fairs will spring up in locations the world over – from a woolshed in the Australian bush to the top of a Chicago skyscraper. Here is all you need to know, plus some of the rarest specimens you might bump into

• Going to one of the fairs? Photograph and share your book finds here
  

There are all sorts of ways to promote reading. The latest arrives on Thursday, in the shape of “a Mexican wave starting the day in Australia and, as the sun goes, finishing the day in the United States”. The wave in question is one of pop-up antiquarian book fairs - stalls where passers-by will have the opportunity to buy rare books, prints, manuscripts and ephemera. The organisers, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, want you to think of it as “a mixture between bookish flash mob and speed dating for book lovers”.

The project will coincide with the Unesco-backed World Book Day– not to be confused with the UK’s celebration of the same name – and will see more than 25 pop-up fairs across the globe (plus a mobile one, in the form of a campervan selling books on the road from Salisbury to Oxford in the UK). You can find all the information here. Some that stand out at first glance are a woolshed in the Australian bush, a train station in the Netherlands, the top of a Chicago skyscyraper and a microbrewery in Portland, Oregon.