A YORK bookshop owner has been asked to run the country’s most prestigious book fair.

Tony Fothergill, who owns Ken Spelman Books in Micklegate, is to chair next year’s annual ABA Olympic Book Fair in the National Hall at Olympia.

Tony has already worked as a committee member for the fair but will now take the reins as plans begin for 2014’s event.

The event has been running now for 56 years and is the third largest English-speaking antiquarian book fair in the world.

This year the fair attracted a record-breaking 186 exhibitors from all over the world and generated sales of around £3.5 million, with one book, a first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, selling for more than £100,000.

Tony is also fair manager for the York National Bookfair and part of the committee for an innovative initiative for young and established book-sellers to learn about the antiquarian book trade from the best booksellers in the country.