I followed two literature lovers into the Frankfurt Book Fair last month. That doesn’t seem so unlikely at first glance: the Buchmesse, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, is the oldest gathering of its kind, and the biggest. A good place to find serious readers, then – and this couple matched all my stereotypes: his hair was limp and long; she was dressed in earth tones; they kissed on the escalator taking us from the U-Bahn to the Messe, in a sort of ebullient celebration of what they were about to enter. But they weren’t what I’d expected to see. Reports from Frankfurt like to remind bibliophiles that this is merely a trade fair – a place for copyrights to be bought and sold – not a gathering ground for readers falling in love all over again, be it with books or each other. Indeed, later in the day, when I spotted my couple for the second time, waiting for a lecture about the role of the novel in the world today, they were engaged in something I wouldn’t see anyone else doing in the first 72 hours of the whole extravaganza: they were each reading a book.