Our friends in the Northern Hemisphere who continue to battle blizzards may not believe this, but Spring is just around the corner. And the lure of warmer days ahead suggests that now is the time for bibliophiles everywhere to begin planning bookish outings.
Spring is a wonderful time to visit local book fairs, since such fairs expose you to a wide variety of books and book collecting possibilities. They also permit you, if you are so inclined, to share stories about "the hunt," tips, strategies and so forth with like-minded collectors and booksellers.
But Spring also is a wonderful season, if you have the money and the time, to really delve into books by visiting a book town in your area:
A book town is "a small rural town or village in which second-hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. Most book towns have developed in villages of historic interest or of scenic beauty." The book town concept is credited to British bookseller Richard Booth. In 1961, Booth established the world's first book town in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. His bookshop there is now billed as "Europe's Largest Secondhand Bookshop," and the village currently features some 30 other bookshops as well.
In the almost half-century since Booth founded the first book town, some 30 other towns around the world have proclaimed that theirs, also, is a book town. However, only 13 of these are officially recognized by the International Organisation of Book Towns. These are:
- Bredevoort (Netherlands)
- Fjaerland (Norway)
- Hay-on-Wye (Wales)
- KampungBuku (Malaysia)
- Montereggio (Italy)
- Redu (Belgium)
- Sedbergh (England)
- St-Pierre-de-Clages (Switzerland)
- Sysmä (Finland)
- Tvedestrand (Norway)
- Wigtown (Scotland)
- Wünsdorf-Waldstadt (Germany)
- Urueña (Spain)
While each of these book towns offers its own individual delights, many are close enough to each other that a committed bibliophile--with sufficient time and money--could go a long way towards building a private library with just a few weeks work....
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