Peking book show has something for everyone

China's first international book fair opened Friday in Peking offering something for bookworms of all tastes, that is, if they could get in. Browsers who managed to obtain admission passes could skim through 50,000 titles ranging from the concise Encyclopaedia Britannica in Chinese to children's books like ``Little Panda Loses His Way.''

No books are for sale. But officials said buyers could place orders for their organizations through the national book importer. The week-long fair was a bibliophile's dream since foreign books are rarely available and very expensive.

Most of the books are in English, although there were some in French, Russian, and other languages.

Chinese officials said they planned to hold similar fairs every two years to boost global friendship and exchange of information. They said this was the first such fair in China since the 1949 Communist revolution.