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sociology of the arts

Regenerating
Regional Culture
A Study of the International
Book Town Movement

JANE FRANK
 Sociology of the Arts

Series editors
Katherine Appleford
Kingston University, UK

Anna Goulding
University of Newcastle, UK

David Inglis
University of Exeter, UK

Dave O’Brien
University of Edinburgh, UK

Mark Taylor
University of Sheffield, UK
This series brings together academic work which considers the production
and consumption of the arts, the social value of the arts, and analyses and
critiques the impact and role of cultural policy and arts management.
By exploring the ways in which the arts are produced and consumed, the
series offers further understandings of social inequalities, power relation-
ships and opportunities for social resistance and agency. It highlights the
important relationship between individual, social and political attitudes,
and offers significant insights into the ways in which the arts are developing
and changing. Moreover, in a globalised society, the nature of arts produc-
tion, consumption and policy making is increasingly cosmopolitan, and
arts are an important means for building social networks, challenging polit-
ical regimes, and reaffirming and subverting social values across the globe.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/series/15469
 Jane Frank

Regenerating
Regional Culture
A Study of the International Book
Town Movement
Jane Frank
Griffith University
Nathan, QLD, Australia

Sociology of the Arts

ISBN 978-3-319-65035-7    ISBN 978-3-319-65036-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65036-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954889

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Cultura RM/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For my sons, Euan and Alastair Cummiskey.
 Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks go to Sharla Plant, Jack Redden and the series editors
at Palgrave Macmillan for their professionalism, advice and enthusiastic
response to this project. Along the way, there have been other critical
readers and significant contributors who have helped shape my research
and ideas. In particular, I would like to thank my colleagues Kay Ferres
and Stephanie Green from Griffith University—my doctoral supervision
team—but also Ian Woodward, who offered concrete support and
encouragement, David Inglis, Tony May, Susanna Chamberlain, Rosslyn
McCarthy and Hugh McMillan. I am also most grateful to Susan Jarvis
for editing my manuscript prior to submission.
Exploring the world’s book towns was a labour of love. However, the
research was made possible by the many experts in Australia, New
Zealand, Scotland, Wales, England and the Republic of Ireland who
shared their experiences, knowledge and time in interviews. Many of
them welcomed me warmly into their book towns; introduced me to
fascinating writers, booksellers and locals; and offered me hospitality.
Their willingness to have their ideas, recollections and opinions expressed
in this book greatly strengthen it, so I extend thanks to Pamela Bakes,
Leo Berkelouw, Richard Booth MBE, Patrick Buckridge, Joanna
Chambers, Ian Cochrane, Ros Derrett OAM, John Edmondson, Lincoln
Gould, Daniel Gschwind, Bill Hauritz, Kate Mead, Paul McShane,
Laurie Muller, Carole Nelson, Anne Nioa, Jane O’Hara, Peter Playden,
vii
viii Acknowledgements

Brian Roberts, Peter Schiotz, Steve Rosa, Ted Sharkey, Robyn Sheahan-­
Bright, Gill Swales, Adrian Turpin OBE, Joyce Watson, David Williams
and Carolyn Yates.
Many other people contributed material, or offered advice and sup-
port, over the course of the project; they include David Adair, Anne
Barclay, Kenny Barr, Joan Benson, Helen Bird, Catherine Black, Amanda
Boyce, Mary Bromilow, Cate Campbell, Susan FitzGerald, Roger Frank,
Margaret Gibson, David and Pamela Gulland, Chris Lee, Donna Little,
Shane McCarthy, Georgina McKeown, Sheila Minet, Pete Monk, Wendy
Mort, Martin O’Brien, Barbara Pini, Maria Porter, Carol Saffer, Chris
Schmidt, Tui Snider, Patricia Wise and Beverley Wood. My thanks goes
to each of them, as well as to my husband, Peter Cummiskey, and young
sons, Euan and Alastair. I acknowledge a lifetime of encouragement and
support from my parents, Alexander and Kathleen Frank.
I am also thankful, of course, for the myriad conversations in book-
shops—both at home and away, and spanning decades—where I’ve
worked, immersed myself in books or simply passed through and memo-
rialized the bookshop, place and discussion with the book/s I collected
that day.
Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli
Terentianus Maurus, De Litteris, De Syllabis, De Metris (c. 300 CE)
 Contents

1 Book Towns: Expanding Literary Connections   1

2 Hay-on-Wye: ‘A Town of Travellers Who Stopped’  35

3 Slow Books: Book Towns as Third Places  65

4 Edge-of-the-Map Locations: Outposts of Sustainable

Culture 111

5 Sacred Objects and Magic Encyclopaedias: Books in Book

Towns 163

6 Occasional Errata: Book Towns That Fail or Falter 195

7 Book Towns: An Unfolding Story 233

References 243

Index 271
ix
 About the Author

Jane Frank is a lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social

Science at Griffith University, Australia, with research interests in the fields of
cultural studies, cultural sociology, and book and print culture.

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Charismatic Hay-on-Wye book town founder Richard

Booth outside his shop (c.1988)  52
Fig. 3.1 Wigtown Book Festival artistic director Adrian Turpin (OBE)
(left) with members of The Bookshop Band, Ben Please and
Beth Porter, and two visitors to Wigtown outside The Open
Book, an initiative where guests can book a period of time
living above and running a bookshop (2016)  76
Fig. 3.2 Featherston, New Zealand’s book town, in the scenic
Wairarapa district (2017)  88
Fig. 3.3 Mr. Feather’s Den, Featherston book town, New Zealand
(2016)  92
Fig. 4.1 Fraser Street, Clunes, Australia—book lovers enjoying
refreshments (2016)  132
Fig. 4.2 England’s book town of Sedbergh tucked beneath the
Howgill Fells (2017)  143
Fig. 5.1 Larry McMurty’s ‘Booked Up’ bookstore, Archer City, Texas,
USA (2014)  166
Fig. 6.1 Graiguenamanagh, Republic of Ireland—almost Ireland’s
book town (2011)  208
Fig. 7.1 Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town, during
Wigtown Book Festival week (2016)  240

xiii
 Introduction

During the 1990s, I worked in Scotland as a book publicist, and in book

export and distribution. As part of my work, I attended book fairs and
expos, and became aware of Hay-on-Wye, the world’s first book town,
and other book towns that were then emerging in Europe. The successful
transformation of this Welsh town had inspired others to follow its lead.
In 1996, I read a Scottish newspaper report about a competition to estab-
lish a national book town in Scotland. Wigtown was declared the winner
in 1997 (Fig. 1).
This initiative grew out of a feasibility study conducted through the
Scottish Tourism Research Unit (STRU) by A.V. (Tony) Seaton.
Between 1992 and 1998, Seaton was Reader in Tourism at the University
of Strathclyde and in 1993 founded Scottish Tourism Research, a pro-
gramme that provided advice to governments on cultural tourism,
thanatourism (dark or grief tourism) and book town development.
Seaton’s research supported a book town venture in a peripheral loca-
tion, the main driver being that a book town would provide a major
opportunity for economic development and be a flagship tourism and
cultural development for a rural town in Scotland (Seaton 1997, p. 2).
This rural regeneration strategy would be funded by the National
Lottery. Seaton and others developed a selection process designed to
allow entrant towns to compete on an equal footing. Selection criteria
included organizational strength, transformational scope, the economic
xv
xvi Introduction

Fig. 1 Wigtown—Scotland’s National Book Town official road signage (2011)

(Source: Photo by author)

importance of the book town to the region, speed of implementation,

the potential to attract book dealers, strategic value and regional bene-
fit, existing book trader expertise, the scenic appeal of the town, the
availability of book supply, historical/cultural features, accommoda-
tion/tourism infrastructure, events programme and available retail
property (Seaton 1999, pp. 394–5).
Seaton’s research was reported in the Glasgow Herald in 1996. In
Wigtown, it sparked the interest of Meta Maltman from the organization
Machars Action (Watson and Cochrane personal interview 2011).
Maltman gathered support for Wigtown’s bid to be Scotland’s National
Book Town. Seven communities placed bids in February 1997 (Press
2001, p. 34). Of these, three came from small towns closely situated in
the south-west of Scotland: Dalmellington, Gatehouse-of-Fleet and
Wigtown. When Wigtown was declared the winner, I drove to the town,
located on a remote peninsula known as the Machars. Everywhere I
 Introduction
   xvii

looked, buildings were crumbling and paint was flaking off the walls. The
town was very down at heel. Visiting writers and journalists would also
see drabness and dilapidation, ‘as if all that was lacking was tumbleweed
rolling down the street’ (Pow 1999, p. 39). It was difficult to imagine this
depressed, marginalized and lonely community by the sea as a bustling
book town in the spirit of Hay-on-Wye.
While there are differing opinions about how complete and effective
the transformation to book town has since been for Wigtown, I sensed a
dramatic change in the physical appearance of the town when I revisited
it on 5 September 2011 after an absence of almost 14 years. The official
road signage on the A75 signalling the turn-off to ‘Wigtown – Scotland’s
National Book Town’ was the first indication of that change. As I reached
the town itself, I found that the distinctive County Buildings had been
restored to their former glory and now housed the Wigtown Book Festival
headquarters, the museum and the local library, providing a central point
of reference. Built in 1862 in the flamboyant French Gothic style, these
buildings—which mark the siting of the County Seat of Wigtown—were
both unexpected and wonderfully out of place in the small Scottish mar-
ket town (Brewster 1996, p. 64). Bookshops lined the two main streets
alongside the town green, sporting names like The Box of Frogs, The
Creaking Shelves, Reading Lasses, The Old Bank and The Bookshop:
Scotland’s Largest Bookshop. The forlorn sense of neglect had been
replaced by a feeling of bookish comfort. Despite it being a bleak, cold,
damp Monday afternoon, well past the peak summer tourist season, there
were people browsing in the shops and it was clear, as I talked informally
to booksellers and visitors, that the Wigtown Book Festival—due to
occur in a few weeks’ time—was keenly anticipated. It would feature
Maggie O’Farrell, Fergal Keane, Celia Imrie and a host of other national
and international figures, most (although not all) of them literary. The
festival offered a feast of content designed to appeal to local audiences,
including regional history as well as celebration of local achievements and
traditions. The scale and depth of the programme were impressive. I was
eager to analyse this apparent transformation and to discover why such a
project, and others like it around the globe, had become a growing
trend—especially as the imminent death of the book was mooted daily in
the media.
xviii Introduction

Since my time in Scotland, I have worked in arts and cultural policy

development, and regional arts delivery, with a special interest in the
capacity of the arts to drive rural and regional cultural development and
renewal, which enrich community life. Although I no longer work in
publishing, I continue to cultivate an obsessive book-collecting habit and
a passion for secondhand bookshops that date back to my youth. The
idea of the book town intrigued me. For a decade, this interest lay dor-
mant; however, one day, as I read Charles Landry’s The Creative City: A
Toolkit for Urban Innovators (2008), I came upon a case study titled
‘Creating Something Out of Nothing: Hay-on-Wye Book Town, UK’.
Landry’s comments about the impacts of culture on economic and com-
munity development—and, in Hay-on-Wye’s case, the impetus of books
in this process—stimulated my own research on the book town phenom-
enon which has escalated to incorporate more than 58 villages in 29
countries.
My aim in this book is to highlight the significant role that increasingly
is being played by book towns as sites of contemporary public culture,
through exploring their diversity, their hybrid cultural values and their
relevance in both international and local contexts. My discussions inter-
lock with other academic work in the realm of sociology and the arts that
is focused on the potential of creative pursuits to drive transformation—
not only in the way that they can build resilience to change but also in
their potential to explore social constructions and the significance of
place, space and identity (Evans and Shaw 2004; McCarthy et al. 2005;
Stephenson and Tate 2015). The advantages of creative community enter-
prises like book towns extend beyond initial processes of engagement to
the achievement of longer term benefits, which include the establishment
of identity and a sense of place; the engendering of resilience, confidence
and new understandings; and the provision of fresh opportunities for
social agency and for the challenging of previous approaches. While more
intensive research has been dedicated to creative cities and their cultural
economies (Cooke and Lazeretti 2008; Florida 2008, 2002; Kong and
O’Connor 2010; Landry 2008; Landry et al. 1996; Markusen 2014;
Pratt 2008; Scott 2006), a growing body of research is also addressing
these ideas in the context of rural and regional communities, which are
equally prone to the impacts of globalization. Chris Gibson’s (2012;
 Introduction
   xix

Gibson and Connell 2011, 2012) empirical and theoretical explorations

relating to the power of culture in Australian rural transformation, and
the way cultural production and consumption are embedded geographi-
cally, together with related studies of cultural economic development in
rural areas (Griswold 2008; Hall et al. 2003; Lade and Jackson 2004;
McGranahan and Wojan 2007; McHenry 2011; Trotter 2001; Wojan
2007; Wood and Thomas 2008) are important contextual markers.
In a similar vein, this book examines the contributions of community
events and festivals that occur in the global sub-set of book towns—
small, rural or regional, vibrant book-loving locales—with relation to
their social and economic life. It explores the proliferation of book town
activity and festival culture as a part of what has been well documented
as a global swell in the number of annual festivals since the last decade of
the twentieth century (Bennett et al. 2014, p. 1) and the potential this
creates for enhancing cultural diversification. Book town festivals, and
book-related dynamics more broadly, are proliferating as sustainable
means for the increasingly mobile audiences and local communities that
consume and experience culture, deliver cultural products for country-
side consumption and generate tourism (Burns and Novelli 2008; Rojek
1993, 2000; Sheller and Urry 2004; Urry 2007). Book towns thus
become ‘a significant aspect of the socio-economic and cultural landscape
of contemporary everyday life’ (Bennett et al. 2014, p. 1) that enables
opportunities for shared consumption of book culture, local history, life-
style activities and hospitality. In a macro sense, this cultural buoyancy
provides transformative consumption experiences for social engagement
‘across cultural, geographic and social borders, and within and across
scales of social interaction from the local to the global’ (Bennett and
Woodward, in Bennett et al. 2014, p. 16).
The intersection of the global rise of cosmopolitanism—usually associ-
ated with growing urbanism and increased levels of education—and the
global rise of the Book Town Movement as it has primarily developed in
rural and peripheral locales is an important one. This book recognizes
book towns as junctures: points of confluence for both individuals and
communities, local and global issues, realism and idealism. The Book
Town Movement and its expansion therefore occupy a significant space
to explore a range of intersecting contemporary sociological trends. I
xx Introduction

explore developments in international cultural tourism and, more

recently, post-tourism to contribute to current understandings about
global and local cultural engagements. In doing so, I will demonstrate
how bringing together a range of approaches, strategies and processes
based in cultural and social theory can enhance how we think about local
or regional experience and potentials in relation to what are too easily
generalized as global trends. The growing importance of marginal book
town locations as centres for cultural activity is highlighted. Festivals and
events occurring in book towns such as Hay-on-Wye in Wales, Wigtown
in Scotland and Australia’s Clunes are highly acclaimed, and the periph-
eral location in itself is an attraction and a drawcard to increasingly global
audiences and participants.
This book breaks new ground in its cultural and material analyses of
the role of the book as catalyst in these transformative events. While dis-
cussions about whether the book will survive the digital revolution are
impossible to avoid in contemporary discourse, and there is lingering
scepticism about the book’s future, the expansion of book towns around
the world at this time is a surprising development in the history of print
culture. While it would be wrong to ignore wider changes in book cul-
ture, book towns provide ample evidence that hard-copy books have
played, and will continue to play, a vital role in shaping our lives. They
are artefacts with a deep, abiding history that not only have relevance as
objects but also impact on other forms of popular culture (Carrière and
Eco 2011; Darnton 2009; Murray 2012). While incorporating new book
technologies and formats into our relationship with books and print,
many of us experience a feeling that two different ways of life are ‘collid-
ing with each other like tectonic plates jostling for position’ (Striphas
2009, p. 176).
I will present book culture in book towns as a paradigm of the means
by which communities evolve a dialogue concerning the history of the
book and the reasons why books are collected. Collections of books speak
to where we wish to go as well as to where we have been. Antiquarian and
secondhand books are significant in the construction of localness because
they carry memory traces that propel visitors back in time. In contempo-
rary culture, time is a source of constraint and people bridle against its
limitations. Activities such as browsing in bookshops and reading demand
 Introduction
   xxi

space and time, drawing us back from the primacy of the moment to a
more leisurely pace. Books, which are tangible objects—sometimes of
great beauty—constitute infinite imagined presences in these communi-
ties. Book towns allow the protection of books from time and from tech-
nology, but are also part of the cultural filtering process: books that don’t
sell eventually perish and society moves on. Books are at once objects and
artefacts, and reading is a three-dimensional, tactile experience in which
the way the text looks or feels or smells influences engagement with it. It
is the fact that they are repositories of these unique and distinct items
with multiple dimensions that infuses the world’s book towns with rich-
ness and diversity.
What especially interests me is the analysis of how book towns have
been established and how this intersects with critical issues about how
book culture is consumed. I therefore examine book towns in the context
of the increased cultural mobility of individuals and address books as
cosmopolitan symbols. I argue that meaningful belonging is derived from
relationships with places, objects and ideas, and explore this notion in
relation to the significance of books as well as geography in the case of
book towns, to show that books, allied with cultural heritage, coffee and
countryside, can both stimulate a book-based economy and promote an
alternative cosmopolitan model in a localized context. This includes
­seeking to understand how people exploit travel as an opportunity to
infuse their lives with greater meaning—and how they value books, col-
lecting books and sharing public discourse about books—and highlight-
ing the difficulties and opportunities that can arise in any discussion of
culture as a measure of community cohesion.
There is evidence of the appeal of book towns relying on a growing
democratization of culture. By analysing Hay-on-Wye book town founder
Richard Booth’s philosophy of book towns as economies of poverty, I
categorize book towns as promoting egalitarianism, exploring their
emphasis on both low and high cultural forms, and demonstrating their
accessibility to all through provision of multiple entry points for engage-
ment. They are hubs that cater to a myriad of different special interests,
idiosyncrasies and even eccentricities, constituting meaningful experi-
ences for all kinds of people seeking engagement at different levels.
Significantly, book towns are magnets for people with eclectic tastes,
xxii Introduction

hives of special interest, and therefore targets for special-interest tourism.

They thrive due to the passion of their eccentric founders and the eccen-
tric tastes of collectors, and they answer the post-tourist need for extreme
novelty. Yet many are established through utopian ideals—opportunities
for booksellers, in particular, to live more perfect lives, where they can
escape the mainstream and where residents and visitors alike can embrace
a rural idyll through avoiding the relentlessness of city living.

Starting Points
The global expansion of the Book Town Movement and its contemporary
dynamics constitute an under-researched field. To my knowledge, there are
no other dedicated academic studies from the past 15 years that holistically
address the movement’s cultural significance and its relationship with other
international trends such as globalization, changing book industry technolo-
gies and trends, consumption of print culture, peripheral community devel-
opment and increased specialization in tourism. Few contemporary
comparisons of book towns in different countries and continents have been
compiled, other than in journalistic commentaries and weblogs. One excep-
tion is Paul McShane’s (2002) Churchill Fellowship Report, which was the
outcome of a tour of book towns in Europe and North America. This report’s
aim was to apply international models as examples for developing a book
town in Australia’s very different geographic and cultural conditions.
However, as it was completed prior to the last decade of expansion, it takes
no account of book towns in Japan, Malaysia, Korea, South Africa, Eastern
Europe and Australia. Another is Audra Merfeld-Langston’s (2007) doctoral
thesis, ‘The Villages du Livre’, which investigates French and Belgian book
towns, but also provides illuminating insights into the expansion of the
movement across Europe. Merfeld-Langston’s work is important for its schol-
arly historical research of French society and print culture and for identifying
why book towns have developed so prolifically in France. While her doctoral
studies provide new detail about the cultural phenomenon of the villages du
livre ‘exploding through the Hexagon’ (p. 8) of France and Belgium, they
draw specifically on political and historical factors unique to France to explain
why the movement developed there in a particular way.
 Introduction
   xxiii

Richard Booth’s (1999) autobiographical account of the rise of Hay-­

on-­Wye and his involvement in the spread of book towns across the globe
provides a level of detail lacking in other sources. As well as recounting
his worldwide search for books and his insights into the book trade, this
autobiography reflects on society as it was changing during the period
that book towns were being established and the effects of this change on
the Book Town Movement itself. Booth depicts this society as increas-
ingly centralized and dominated by distant authorities, both bureaucratic
and capitalistic. However, because the account relies so heavily on Booth’s
unorthodox political and social views, which inevitably colour his recol-
lections of how events unfolded, I have counterbalanced these ideas with
the critiques of others where available, particularly the memoirs of Paul
Collins (2003) and Paul Minet (1989), and Kate Clarke’s (2000) history
of Hay-on-Wye. Merfeld-Langston (2007) also offers helpful insights
into the thinking of Nöel Anselot, the founder of Redu, Belgium’s book
town, expressed in his autobiography, Un Village à Livre Ouverts (2004).
The founder of Archer City book town Larry McMurtry’s three volumes
of autobiography, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty
and Beyond (1999), Books: A Memoir (2008) and Literary Life: A Second
Memoir (2009), are more than accounts of McMurtry’s passion for
­antiquarian books and the establishment of a book town in the vast emp-
tiness of the Texan landscape. Using the writings of Walter Benjamin as a
starting point, his work encapsulates valuable material about the book
trade, not only in Texas and the United States but globally. Of course,
Seaton’s research of the 1990s—thorough and ground-breaking at that
time—was pivotal, yet it was largely quantitative, primarily focused on
the role of book towns as stimulators of tourism, and is now dated.
These were all important references and starting points for my explora-
tion of why book towns are a growing phenomenon in the early twenty-­
first century. In this book, I return to the source of the movement in the
United Kingdom and explore holistically, for the first time, the social and
cultural factors that triggered, but also combined to sustain, this endur-
ing global phenomenon. I particularly focus on book towns in Wales,
Scotland, England, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and Australia
to closely explore their particular reasons for development and their
diverse specializations. Wales is the site of the world’s first book town, and
xxiv Introduction

I particularly wanted to interview founder Richard Booth as a significant

component of the research for this book. It was also important for me to
revisit Wigtown in Scotland to witness the changes that had taken place
there since that book town’s inception. I was also particularly interested
in the comparison of Australia’s and New Zealand’s fledgling book towns
with longer established examples in the United Kingdom in terms of
local cultural policy considerations. The specific first-hand accounts of
book towns are therefore limited in number but investigated in depth
and enriched by my personal exposure to book town environments,
events and happenings.
In my observations of book towns, I paid particular attention to the
town settings themselves, and the bookshops within those towns and vil-
lages: their physical, spatial, temporal and social organization. I observed
community dynamics at events and festivals, but also in the day-to-day
lives of the towns. My own impressions are therefore built into the dis-
cussions in this book: my observation of spatial and behavioural aspects
of book towns thus providing a social and cultural inquiry into the
dynamics of book towns to reveal new understandings.
An important aspect of my site analysis was exploration of book towns
as ‘cultural landscapes’, where book town activity has imbued rural and
regional locales with cultural values. Through combined elements of time
and space, and representing political as well as social and cultural con-
structs, book towns have acquired significant layers of meaning that I
analyse through historical, sociological and cultural perspectives. The
character of book town landscapes and townscapes reflects the values of
the entrepreneurs and shapers of projects, as well as those who live in
these places. Book towns are landscapes of cultural exchange where prac-
tices and processes become forms of cultural heritage. The creation of
themed book town communities creates the community’s image of itself,
yet I also address the different ways in which non-book-related groups
and individuals regard book town initiatives. I examine travel and tour-
ism to book towns, built around a quest for particular experiences, and
explore the experience of place and landscape as key elements of that
quest. This book therefore analyses my observations of tourism-driven
representations of book towns as cultural landscapes through an explora-
tion of issues connected with globalization and localization.
 Introduction
   xxv

Book town case studies make it possible to analyse book town exam-
ples in geographically disparate regions, providing a level of depth, rich-
ness and complexity not provided in earlier numerical studies
commissioned by government and tourism bodies. They were an ideal
means for me to examine the underlying reasons why events are taking
place in book towns and how processes are occurring. I conducted 28 in-­
depth interviews in book town locations. These interactions enabled me
to gain insights into the social reality of book towns: social processes,
social change, social organization and social meaning. I selected some
interviewees for their specific book town expertise as project founders,
managers, festival directors or booksellers in the towns I identified for
particular focus. Others were purposely selected from sectors that inter-
sected with book town projects, such as publishing, libraries, govern-
ment, tourism, event management, the cultural industries and academia.
However, I was able to widen my pool of interviewees by using snowball
sampling—simply asking these original experts who else to interview, so
the ‘snowball’ grew as I encountered many other people in the book
towns themselves who were knowledgeable about the history and estab-
lishment of book town projects.
During these in-depth conversations, I was interested in exploring a
range of different approaches and themes from the perspectives of both
cultural production and consumption to understand why cultural diver-
sity thrives in these places. Working more specifically at the intersections
of cultural studies, cultural policy, social science and print culture, my
research considered where, how and why book towns exist within cul-
tural and community contexts. Visits to book towns, in-depth conversa-
tions with book town experts and a focus on the practices of book town
events, festivals and the day-to-day existence of those who work in book
businesses and visit book town enterprises enabled me to develop an
approach that built a more revealing understanding of book town cul-
ture, encompassing both the contemporary and historical cultural prac-
tices that have occurred and the social reality of individuals, groups and
communities that engage in book town life. I explored and analysed the
interviewees’ perspectives, but also looked at their values—their deeply
held beliefs about what is important to book town experience. I consid-
ered how people made decisions and participated in social action in these
xxvi Introduction

communities. My own background in book and print culture was also

highly relevant to these discussions, helping to shape my understanding
of book town dynamics. In many respects, therefore, this book provides
a relationship model of social and cultural inquiry.
A rewarding outcome of writing this book has been the opportunity
for mutual learning and the transfer of knowledge. As well as benefiting
from the first-hand knowledge and project expertise of experts and stake-
holders, I was able to share theory and practical information from other
book towns. The material I could share offered opportunities to create
stronger networks between book towns. Established book town leaders
were interested to learn of other projects and often were willing to pro-
vide advice about how to overcome obstacles. It thus follows that, in
many cases, I didn’t simply conduct isolated interviews with respondents
but have maintained a continuing dialogue. For this reason, an impor-
tant outcome of writing this book will be maintaining connections and
sharing intelligence of contemporary international trends that are work-
ing around the world. This is a way of providing in-kind support to ener-
getic and innovative people working in an often under-resourced
environment.
Cultural policy is an important focus in this book’s analysis of how
book towns achieve cultural diversity. The research aims to inform cul-
tural policy frameworks through investigation of how book towns orient
their cultural policies in contexts of diversity, with particular attention
paid to the social dimension of these policies. The book town is presented
as an example of a cultural resource and a public good that has the poten-
tial to contribute significantly to future public policy and to regional
culture around the globe, promoting innovation. As peripheral town-
ships with increasingly eclectic populations and approaches, book towns
promote new dynamics for community and cultural practices in rural
and regional areas. This book analyses the ways in which book towns use
cultural strategies to reinvigorate failing economies and strengthen cul-
tural capital. The notion of a themed community based on books and
book culture is examined as a development strategy capable of consoli-
dating a rural town’s reputation as a cultural attraction. The work exam-
ines how the social dynamics of rural life are harnessed in book towns to
enhance the authenticity of the visitor experience.
 Introduction
   xxvii

In particular, I examine book towns as effective examples of culture-led

regeneration in regional areas throughout the world: as policy instru-
ments that deliver cultural unification as a means to protect national and
regional cultures, and in their capacity as bastions of social capital, eco-
nomic multipliers and tourism hubs. I also survey book towns in the
context of their importance to citizenship and civic discourse by high-
lighting the role of bookstores in everyday existence as vital ‘sinews of
civil society … the common thread of civil life’ (Gopnik 2015, para. 7).
To do this, it was necessary to closely scrutinize a range of government
documents and reports sourced from a number of countries. These
included Hansard, ABS statistical data and international equivalents,
central and local government development reports and meeting minutes,
and government reports on sustainable rural tourism, business clustering,
sea change and tree change, community development, cultural heritage
and regeneration, and volunteerism in country towns. I consulted many
documents specific to book town development, including feasibility
studies, economic impact studies, event audits and outcome reports,
business plans, project evaluations and forecasts. While secondary
resources and ethnographic research were important to my book town
research, I also drew on a wide range of unpublished texts, including
reports, newspaper and magazine articles, brochures, festival programmes,
newsletters, web materials, and radio and television media. Many of these
materials were only made available through site visits and shed important
light on the social environment of book town communities.
Using these materials, this book explores book towns as significant to
growing regional agendas informed by social, economic, cultural and
demographic change. These communities have often found themselves
in economic situations dictated by the vagaries of world financial mar-
kets and industrial change that have placed them under siege. They are
examined as models of resilience and sustainability through implement-
ing place-based strategies where they are themed as ‘places for books’,
ultimately leading to broader social benefits including community cohe-
sion, community-mindedness, increased tolerance and cultural diversity,
a pride and attachment to the town, and a strong sense of the future.
Book towns are also investigated as projects that explore and define
communities of book-based interests. Part of this discussion considers
xxviii Introduction

the motivations of those who have moved from metropolitan existences

to live and work in book towns and their reasons for doing so: cheaper
property, a themed community of like-minded booksellers, more space
to work, a more relaxed lifestyle and a rural environment. My findings
demonstrate that these benefits counteract difficulties such as distance
from city venues, markets and networks, and that in fact there are still
fruitful linkages with urban cultural life. The rise of book towns is linked
to the dispersal of cultural capital related to globalization and localiza-
tion, the breakdown of high cultural authority and the growing sophis-
tication of media cultures.
Book towns are positioned as centres of social change through the
power bases they establish in their building of partnerships with govern-
ments, businesses, the publishing industry and the media. They play an
important role in bringing communities together by sustaining local tra-
ditions and experimenting with innovative festival programming that
places them at the centre of cultural debate. This includes attention to
how book towns embrace young people in their programmes—which is
essential to maintaining their future relevance.
While this book aims to afford an insight into the core values upon
which it seems most book towns have drawn, and presents a range of key
ideas and processes for thinking and theorizing that are likely to prove the
basis for successful book town projects, it does not present a model for
book town development. The book and the results it conveys are reliant
on specific investigations in a selection of the world’s book towns. Book
town development and emphases vary considerably in each of the world’s
book towns, so it is not possible to regard any book town as wholly typi-
cal of those elsewhere. While book towns often adopt national, regional
or local characteristics relating to geography, cuisine or culture, each is
unique. However, where possible, patterns of development or success
observed across various examples are identified.
Besides focusing on the history of the Book Town Movement and the
lives and experiences of book town entrepreneurs, my research also incor-
porated a close study of issues and topics related to books, book culture
(the ideas) and print culture (books as objects). As well as subjects includ-
ing the history of books and book collecting, I investigated the central role
played by books in human social communication structures including the
 Introduction
   xxix

publishing industry, book and writer’s festivals, the future of secondhand

bookshops, reading trends around the world and the nexus between books
and citizenship. This research, gleaned not only from reports, books and
journal articles but also from extensive media sources, was essential to
understanding why, despite having been overlooked previously in schemes
of economic and social regeneration, books as cultural and cosmopolitan
items are fundamental to the phenomenon of the book town. This is not
only because of the part they play in bridging industrial and digital worlds,
but due to the social and economic impacts they create when book-based
economies are established.
This research was important for recognizing the relationship between
issues facing the publishing industry and the growth of book towns.
Changes in publishing as a result of the digital age mean a significant resi-
due of printed items is left in their wake. These items are sought after,
desirable and have an exchange value. Book towns are burgeoning in
light of these changes, with books at their nucleus stimulating creative
possibilities that enable innovation, meet a global demand for special
interests and self-fashioning and allow the gathering of book enthusiasts
in the countryside. I use this research material to demonstrate that books
in book towns act as conduits for global connectivity but simultaneously
work as trigger points for nostalgia that draws people to these places. An
unprecedented growth of literary festivals and a strong interest in literary
prizes are part of a sustained interest in book culture expressed in book
towns. These wholesome, convivial communities are thus increasingly
important components in the commercial and media structures signifi-
cant to contemporary book culture and provide evidence of shifting pat-
terns of cultural consumption.
It is my hope that the work I have done to analyse book town examples
from opposite parts of the world will provide a foundation for those
involved in the existing or future development of book towns. This
research should assist the broader book community and inspire open-­
minded local communities to consider a book town development as a
means of injecting new life into peripheral communities suffering social
or economic hardship or deterioration. Research into book towns as
examples of regional or peripheral development would also assist future
book town establishers by highlighting that book town successes rely on
xxx Introduction

unique regional and local characteristics and an avoidance of homoge-

nous culture. Communities will succeed by remaining true to their
intrinsic character. Through the development of book-based economies,
book towns are emerging as unique and idiosyncratic centres of sustained
social, cultural and economic growth. Strong links established between
book town development and tourism are significant generators of eco-
nomic activity and catalysts for alliances between government and cre-
ative communities, so this account of the Book Town Movement may
also provide guidance for governments, entrepreneurs or tourist bodies
seeking a tailored opportunity to advance a peripheral community with
potential.

Outline of Chapters
Chapter 1 defines the term ‘book town’ and identifies the factors that have
combined to create circumstances whereby book towns have proliferated.
It locates book towns at the intersection of a number of local and global
trends that impact on the consumption of book culture. It deploys the
concept of book culture to foreground the intertwined relationship
between books, collecting, themed communities and specialized tourism
practices that positions the book town as significant in contemporary life
as a mechanism for regional and cultural vitality. In establishing the begin-
nings of book towns, and recognition of them, the chapter addresses the
first book town research by Tony Seaton, which focused on the economic
model of specialized retail clusters in Hay-on-Wye and the early European
book towns as a driver of regional tourism development, leading to sus-
tainability. It also documents experiments in Europe, where book towns
developed online organizational networks to enhance their profile in step
with increasing globalization and opportunities newly available due to
emerging technologies. A number of agendas for book town formation are
established, including European unification, UNESCO’s global creative
policy-making strategies recognizing places of cultural and literary activ-
ity, political motivations in France associated with preservation of national
book and literary culture, and the appeal of book towns as utopian locales,
or cohesive peripheral territories, that celebrate community values and a
 Introduction
   xxxi

unique identity based on book culture infused with the ambience of rural
landscapes. At the same time, the chapter establishes that book towns cre-
ate a point of difference from city-­based book culture and offer an appeal-
ing lifestyle. Charles Landry’s (2008) work on cultural clusters is applied
to the clustering of books in book towns to appeal to the imagination of
book-enthused entrepreneurs and generate travel demand from both cul-
tural tourist and post-tourist cohorts.
In Chap. 2, the entrepreneurial and organic theories of book town
development are discussed with reference to the Welsh town of Hay-on-­
Wye as a foundational example of how book towns can operate success-
fully as sites of cultural as well as economic renewal. This chapter details
the inception and progression of Hay-on-Wye, investigating why it has
sustained itself successfully for over half a century and uncovering the
nexus between that success and the eccentricity of its founder, Richard
Booth. The chapter details Booth’s notion of a peripherally based book
empire that inspired the flourishing of the global Book Town Movement,
leading to a variety of idiosyncratic and strategic approaches in nations
around the world. Key philosophies applied by Booth in his creation of a
book empire were the book town as an ‘economy of poverty’, and respect
for and protection of a traditional rural way of life, which are explained.
However, the remarkable success of the initiative is also attributed to a
number of other factors particular to the 1960s, including specialization
and decentralization of the UK book trade and Booth’s early appreciation
of the international trade opportunities that later became widespread due
to sweeping globalization. Importantly, the chapter clarifies the trades in
new titles and secondhand books as distinct from each other: the second-
hand economy is centred on merchandise that is not confined by time
restrictions that govern a new book’s ‘lifespan’. This issue accounts for the
disconnect between the Hay Festival, established in 1988, and the com-
munity of secondhand book dealers in Hay-on-Wye led by Booth. In
most subsequent book towns, the establishment of festivals that celebrate
the book and the ideas contained in it have been embraced eagerly. For
this and other reasons, the chapter documents why Hay-on-Wye is a sur-
prising and unique development in the history of print culture, rural
tourism and community dynamics, but at the same time an organic
model that is a complex and dangerous exemplar for replication.
xxxii Introduction

In Chap. 3, I examine the juncture between book towns as attractive

destinations and the emergence of the Slow Movement in the late 1980s
to explain further how book towns developed as sites of cultural renewal.
The qualities of book town culture that demand experiential immer-
sion—such as slow reading, browsing and fossicking in bookshops, as
well as the conviviality of events and activities associated with writing,
reading and book crafts that they promote—unlock the pleasure and
enchantment that are integral to the notion of slow culture. This chapter
explores bookshops and book towns as third places that encourage relax-
ation, creative interaction, inclusivity and community unification. Book
festivals and fairs in book towns are unique in these rural locales that
operate as secular forums for considering issues that are not only book
related, but refer to broader societal and ethical concerns. They create
distinct identities, focusing on cultural heritage and nostalgic rural pasts
as well as providing a utopian counterpoint to impersonal ‘mass’ offerings
and the increasing commercialization and standardization of large cities.
The hand-crafted, organic country goodness of the experiences—recycled
books, fresh air, locally grown produce and the ‘heart’ behind the festivals
hosted in these locales—appeals to travellers in search of more meaning-
ful experiences as well as to local inhabitants. This chapter aims to unpack
the link between book towns and the intimacy of experience that is
achieved when there is an opportunity to create connections with people,
place and culture in a leisurely way. The value of historic heritage and the
‘character’ of book towns as cultural tourism drawcards, destinations for
nomadic travellers and prospective sea-change and tree-change locations
has heightened their social and economic potential. They have therefore
been identified as places deserving of policy focus.
This leads into Chap. 4, which investigates book towns as sustainable
culture-led rural regeneration projects. The chapter explores key motiva-
tions for the support of book towns by governments and development
agencies as ‘edge-of-the-map’ attractions that ‘create something out of
nothing’, as Landry (2008) recommends. The peripheral nature of book
towns and their distance from urban centres of culture is identified as
intrinsic to their success. Book-based economies are flourishing in rural
communities where, unlike in cities, entrepreneurs and booksellers can
afford spacious, unoccupied properties—often with considerable
 Introduction
   xxxiii

charm—that, when grouped together, create specialized book clusters,

the like of which is unlikely to occur in the metropolis. This distinctive-
ness establishes book towns as unique destinations that not only sell
books but are thriving centres of regional culture. Book towns encourage
regional cultural expression of language, literature, geography, history
and specialties such as local produce and cuisine. These place-centred
specifics colour visitor experiences so that the desirable landscapes in
which book towns are located become an important component of the
image these communities project. The chapter thus addresses book towns
as place commodities where image-building is vital to tourist consump-
tion in a global world: the unfamiliar, exotic and picturesque are highly
marketable. While the problems posed by themed town identities are
explained in this chapter, I also reinforce the point that the increased
social cohesion, and the cultural and economic capital made possible by
the resultant multiplier effect, provide a means of effectively galvanizing
communities behind book town initiatives. The chapter poses the chal-
lenges for themed villages when it comes to addressing the needs of the
non-bookish elements in their communities. Book towns attract and
retain change-makers and other talented individuals who operate busi-
nesses and curate events with programmes that dually appeal to local
populations as well as culturally savvy people willing to travel long dis-
tances to be part of exciting literary and intellectual dialogues.
Chapter 5 explores the dimensions of book culture exploited and
enhanced by book towns. In this chapter, the success of the book town
phenomenon is attributed largely to the book as a unique commodity, a
beautiful artefact, a container of ideas and a marker of history, nostalgia
and the substantiality of print culture. The chapter unpacks the unique
relationship between book collectors and their books, distinguishing
books from other items of consumption. I argue that collecting books is
an egalitarian occupation, with the collector understanding, cherishing
and preserving the concept and ideal of the book—its historical, material
and sentimental value. The tangibility of books as objects of desire is
investigated: antiquarian books embody history and provenance revealed
in their aesthetics—jackets, bindings, inscriptions, book plates, imper-
fections and previous ownership. The wanting of these objects is con-
nected, in this chapter, to a middle-class nostalgia for a romanticized
xxxiv Introduction

past, while at the same time the book is regarded widely as a cosmopoli-
tan symbol representing intellectual debate and meaningful human inter-
action. The connection between books, memory and the literate person’s
literary DNA is highlighted in this chapter to explain why pilgrimages to
book towns are sought both as a means to desired identities and as plea-
surable experiences, in which the sight, touch and smell of books are
central. The ‘treasure hunt’ that is secondhand book shopping is thus a
metaphor readily used by book villages. However, a link is established in
this chapter between new book publishing and the secondhand book
economy as the continuation of the first will continue to impact on the
future potential of the second. Contemporary engagement with print
and literary culture is explored, as is the valuable role performed by inde-
pendent bookstores as vibrant hubs of physical and cerebral experience.
Amid the success of the global Book Town Movement, Chap. 6 draws
attention to book towns that have not achieved sustainable outcomes.
The chapter applies Tony Seaton’s list of critical success factors to the
failed projects of Blaenafon in Wales and Atherstone in England, as well
as Graiguenamanagh in the Republic of Ireland—an emergent book
town experiencing financial hardship despite possessing other desirable
attributes. Book towns constantly tackle a range of economic, political,
social and book industry-related issues that threaten to render their
futures uncertain. The chapter examines a range of challenges faced by
book towns, not only in their infancy but also with the inevitable ageing
of the entrepreneurs who created and sustained them. The often eccentric
individuals who envisage idealistic or utopian book town communities,
as well as booksellers who relocate to book towns to be part of such proj-
ects, are categorized in this chapter as non-conformist and reluctant to be
part of initiatives that are overly prescriptive or constraining. Their lack
of conformity is the very spark that ignites the project, but it can also
make book towns problematic models in a strategic management sense
when requirements from governments and business stakeholders need to
be met. The chapter discusses the hybrid approaches book towns will
need to incorporate and consider as they evolve and further engage tour-
ists in pursuits associated with book culture and innovation, with special-
ized secondhand bookshops likely to remain one aspect of a multi-faceted
identity. It is argued that engagement with a younger demographic will
 Introduction
   xxxv

be integral to their success, as will the need to make a difference to the

town’s fortunes as a means of recovery and reinvigoration, and the impor-
tance of growing a network of towns around the world that are increas-
ingly recognized as significant sites of cultural diversity.

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 1
Book Towns: Expanding
Literary Connections

What Is a Book Town?

A book town or a location that has forged a new life through the book
business—secondhand and antiquarian bookselling, writing, reading,
festivals, publishing and celebration of the written word—uses its book-­
based economy to provide a unique, themed identity to the town or vil-
lage, bolstering local, national and international tourism. In particular,
book towns both rely on and contribute to the global increase in cultural
tourism. Their existence means not only that the survival of hard-copy
books is assured, but also that the specialized crafts and skills associated
with their historical production are kept alive. This is because they appeal
to an emergent nostalgia for preserving traditional print culture in an age
of new technology and globalization that threatens the potential loss of
traditional books. This nostalgia stems from a general renewal of interest
among the middle class in handcrafted goods, in models of how people
previously lived, in historic technologies and in ‘slow food’, found in
farmers’ markets in cities, hinterland areas, coastal resorts and local pro-
duce stalls in rural areas. The book town concept—particularly as it has
evolved in Europe—has proven its capacity to revitalize communities via
multiplier effects from a book-based economy, cultural tourism and

© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. Frank, Regenerating Regional Culture, Sociology of the Arts,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65036-4_1
2 J. Frank

increased social capital for communities. It has therefore emerged as an

innovative tourism solution to the economic, social and cultural issues
associated with geographic peripherality and unification.
As an international phenomenon, book towns1 are also known as
Boekenstad (in the Netherlands), Paese dei Librai (in Italy), Villages2 du
livre (in France and Belgium), Bücherstadt (in Germany) and Noshe
Bokbyen (in Norway) and dozens of other names in the languages of their
various host countries around the world. Booth (1999, p. 274) makes the
crucial point that it is hard to provide an exact definition of a book town
because they are all so different. Book towns developed through unique
processes and by dint of their own geographic, topographical and book-­
generated uniqueness—by the coast (Bécherel, France; Wigtown,
Scotland; Sidney-by-the-Sea, Canada), far inland on prairies and in
(almost) ghost towns (Archer City, USA; Clunes, Australia), on islands
(Gotland, Sweden); in mountainous terrain (Montereggio, Italy); in for-
ests (Redu, Belgium; Waldstadt Wünsdorf, Germany); with cross-border
emphasis (Bredevoort, the Netherlands); as districts or quarters in larger
regional locations (Montolieu, France); with seasonal limitations
(Fjærland, Norway); as eco-experiments (Torup, Denmark); focused on
children (Kembuchi and Miyawaga, children’s picture book villages,
Japan; Mellösa, Sweden); as a small cluster of communities all focused on
book-related activities (Southern Highlands, Australia); specializing in
theology (Stillwater, USA); related to graphic arts (Montolieu, France);
education-oriented (Kampung Buku, Malaysia); and connected to pub-
lishing (Paju, South Korea). This book will demonstrate that their differ-
ences and their ability to embrace national, regional and local particularities
and cultural uniqueness are what make book towns attractive and suc-
cessful holiday and leisure destinations.
When Seaton (1999) first defined the book town, he provided an
account of how these towns initially had developed across Europe—the
cradle of the concept—with a retail emphasis focused on economic devel-
opment and the tourist profile of certain towns:

The basic concept of a book town consists in converting a substantial

amount of commercial properties, or defunct public ones, in declining
rural towns and peripheral regions, into units for the retailing of second
 Book Towns: Expanding Literary Connections 3

hand and antiquarian books, thus creating a critical mass of single-­

commodity retailing which ultimately allows the town or region to be
packaged and marketed as a novel and unique entity – a town of books.
Through the attraction of this kind of specialist retail development visitors
are motivated to visit peripheral areas that previously offered no unique
raison d’être as tourist attractions. (p. 390)

Seaton and Alford (2001a, b) later broadened the scope of the concept
beyond retail to embrace complementary cultural facets of these literary
townships related to memory, identity and tradition. These included arti-
san retail enterprises associated with the production of books: paper pro-
duction, calligraphy, printing, book design and illustration and traditional
bookbinding. This expanded definition also includes the staging of events
with a literary or artistic theme that allows book towns to be centres of
cultural tourism. Seaton and Alford regard book towns as places that
particularly appeal to the educated, affluent audiences who constitute the
market for antiquarian and secondhand books. Other authors have
focused more holistically on what a book town is able to provide and how
it establishes a point of difference that transforms the character of a vil-
lage or town, and propels the rejuvenation and renewal of towns in need
of economic rescue. Hanna (2005, p. 1), for example, remarks:

What is a book town? It depends who you ask. A few definitions follow: a
small rural village with lots of bookshops; a themed village with books as
a focal point; lots of businesses selling books alongside their other stock;
a village or town whose economy is bolstered substantially by the sale of
books; a place of culture, of books and music and theatre. If I am asked, I
will answer all of the above. I care less about the definition than I do about
the overall effect a book town has upon the village or town where it is
born … Book towns benefit the local economy by giving an identity to
the town or village and increasing local, national and international tour-
ism. The theory is that people won’t go out of their way to visit one book-
shop but will travel many miles to visit a book town. To light a fire when
a town is ‘down on its luck’ it needs a new image and a fresh start; the
book town initiative provides that.

Hanna emphasizes the multiplier effect that book town projects have on
regional economies, impacting not only on book-related businesses, but
4 J. Frank

on a host of other—often unrelated—businesses in the community.

What is implied, but not directly stated, in this definition is that book
town projects are valuable for kick-starting the sense of a town’s growing
social capital. Macaskill (2007, p. 2) describes what many contemporary
book towns try to achieve in this regard, stating that a book town is a
location that celebrates the written word and welcomes travellers whether
they are avid readers, writers or merely browsers, wanting to visit a town
with an extra twist. These towns and villages have a delightfully dispro-
portionate number of secondhand and antiquarian bookshops, and
sometimes also have other associated businesses based on writing, reading
and publishing. The idea is that a mainly rural town—in attractive sur-
roundings and with historic interest—will find a new life through the
book business by attracting well-read visitors.
Any contemporary definition of a book town needs to be inclusive of
a range of valid models and viewpoints, and this book will contribute a
further dimension to these understandings. For example, Wigtown
Festival Director Adrian Turpin (personal interviews 2011, 2017) is
interested in the ‘grassroots’ role of the book town as a resilient literature
organization for a region, a national resource and destination for cultural
tourism and a point of diversity and connection. He emphasizes the
evolving role of the book town as it adapts to a range of broad local and
global influences, forecasting that book towns will increasingly become
centres of learning and places where ideas are traded. This is so despite the
peripheral locations of these towns, or even because of their geographic
situations. In contrast, Hay-on-Wye founder Richard Booth (personal
interview 2011) identifies the market for secondhand books primarily as
an international one, driven by special interests and scarcity of certain
secondhand titles in specialized subject categories. His broad view is that
book towns need to be the axis points of an international economy and a
springboard for greater international understanding through educational
exchange. He argues that the advantage of specialized subject areas and
linkages with wider international networks is that they will improve the
service provided by book towns and widen their global market share.
The emergence of the Book Town Movement is inextricably tied to the
key role of individuals—often eccentric ones—beginning with Booth, the
founder of the concept. Beginning in 1961, he single-handedly inspired
 Book Towns: Expanding Literary Connections 5

the development of the world’s first book town, Hay-on-Wye in Wales. I

investigate how others were inspired by his lead and how book towns
emerged in Europe and beyond, leading to the formation of international
networks and collaborations. Book town founders have identified and
developed the potential of their community and region to sustain book-
centred activities and attract a book-loving public, as well as understand-
ing and utilizing interactions between not-for-profit and for-profit
enterprises in the contexts of tourism, hospitality, cultural production and
cultural consumption. While recent book town models have been inspired
by certain flamboyant bibliophiles, they also rely for their success and sur-
vival on entrepreneurship, government investment, targeted philanthropy
and sophisticated communication and networking systems. An interesting
juxtaposition is that book towns rely heavily on the internet and a range of
modern technologies to conduct their business affairs, including main-
taining virtual networks with other bookshops and book towns around the
globe. They are both able to preserve past technologies, yet actively take
part in contemporary global communications that rely on cutting-edge
technologies. In many ways, they are as much a product of contemporary
technological and cultural change as they are a reaction to it.

 hy Are Book Towns Proliferating

W
Across the Globe?
The popularity, growing importance and expanding functions of book
towns, located in peripheral locales, magnify their role in facilitating a
wide range of connections between writers, event organizers, book collec-
tors, publishers, the media and the book-loving public, as well as inter-
changes between communities around the globe. Book towns and the
books at their nucleus, as central to overlapping literary, community and
commercial interests, spark the central question of this study: why, at a
time when the book industry is arguably experiencing a transformation
that is more profound than at any time since Gutenberg introduced
printing from moveable type in the 1450s, are book towns a growing
phenomenon in the early twenty-first century, sustaining and adapting
the relationship between book culture and regional locations?
6 J. Frank

Print and Book Culture

The first factor is the continued buoyancy of book and print culture.
Book towns are repositories of secondhand books. Yet my examination of
existing scholarship and findings from visits to book towns has revealed a
surprising gap in the existing research: the lack of analysis of the current
significance of books within book towns. None of the remarkable book-­
based tourism, economic or peripheral development activity that has
occurred would be possible without the continuing draw of books and
the sustained need for people to engage in a complex series of relation-
ships with them. The work of this book therefore aims to engage with and
contribute to a growing body of research on book history that, together
with book/print culture and publishing studies, emphasizes the role of
the book as a material object. Books remain key artefacts through which
we ‘articulate and struggle over specific interests, values, practices and
world views’ while book culture can be defined as the ‘meanings, values,
practices, artefacts and ways of life associated with books’ (Striphas 2009,
pp. 3–9). More broadly, print culture embodies all forms of printed text
and other forms of visual communication, and can be contrasted with
oral culture (Ong 1982). It is defined as the conglomeration of effects on
human society created by printed forms of communication and encom-
passes many stages as it has evolved in response to technological advance.
Over the last 25 years, there has been a new interest in examining print
culture, evidenced in the work of Robert Darnton and others who have
followed his lead. ‘Cultural history approaches’ have embraced the study
of institutional, industrial and cultural contexts of reading and writing
(Carter and Galligan 2007, p. 2). This trend is driven partly by recogni-
tion of the key role played by print in our culture for the past 500 years,
but also a realization that the book’s status is being challenged by other
media. Its overwhelming dominance is increasingly being questioned in
the literature, and Finkelstein and McCleery (2002, pp. 2–3) believe that
this has licensed the study of the book’s past as a means to better under-
stand a potential eclipse of the print era.
With Ted Striphas, I strongly question any commonsense under-
standings of a crisis of book culture. Books still remain at the nucleus
of a complex social infrastructure. This infrastructure ‘comprises a
 Book Towns: Expanding Literary Connections 7

network of intersecting material, technical, interpersonal, institutional

and discursive relations that provides for the production, distribution,
exchange and consumption of books’ (Striphas 2009, p. 14). Although
the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a
new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our daily lives. In
fact, the ‘everyday life of book culture’ includes the institutional
arrangements, social relations and historical processes that enable books
to be perceived as everyday entitlements or ‘objects that can be counted
on to be wherever and whenever we expect them to be’ (pp. 10–11).
The book is still the quintessential capital good, having evolved along-
side capitalism itself, and both the book and book industry are key foci
for innovation: ‘late capitalism is still vigorous capitalism, so books and
other printed materials in the late age of print are still common and
enjoy considerable prestige’ (Bolter quoted in Striphas p. 3). Books
have a unique role in our culture—an unusual double life. In one sense,
they are regarded as important tools of our culture and fundamental to
education, subject to intense government and media scrutiny or else
disregarded as a form of elite taste; yet at the same time they are consid-
ered throwaway items—disposable, familiar, everyday commercial
products that are subject to the fluctuations of the market. Similarly, in
the case of publishing, there is a dualism between commerce and cul-
ture, with publishing considered a commercial industry subject to all
the forces and constraints of the marketplace, yet one whose ‘products
carry messages of social and cultural significance’ that many people seek
despite the inconsistencies and constraints of the commercial sector
(Carter and Galligan 2007, pp. 3–5).
Considering that context, in the writing of this book I have engaged
with the following questions: how are people engaging with print cul-
ture? What role do books play in our lives? And, importantly, what impli-
cations do these connections have on the growth of the Book Town
Movement? While investigating these questions, I was confronted by two
opposed and initially perplexing collections of evidence, leading to very
different conclusions about the future of print culture and engagement
with books. Some people describe a current renaissance in book culture,
yet others just as vehemently reject this argument. Darnton (1999) rather
ironically comments that ‘the “conventional” book has been pronounced
8 J. Frank

dead so often that we shouldn’t be surprised to find that it seems in excel-

lent health’:

Rarely in Britain has the book trade seemed so vigorous … Britain’s literary
microclimate is tropical in its fever and Elizabethan in its profusion. Book
festivals from Folkestone to Edinburgh heave with visitors; book clubs and
reading groups have become middle England’s bingo; book prize news
breaks ceaselessly. And that’s not to mention the broadcasters, from The
South Bank Show and Richard and Judy to Book at Bedtime. No genre of
contemporary writing escapes the programmers. (McCrum 2006, para. 2)

Buzbee (2006, pp. 213–14) observes that ‘we’re publishing more books
than ever, and while there is a good deal being published that we proba-
bly won’t be reading fifty, or even five, years from now, this has always
been the case.’ However, just as many commentators and researchers—
including Birkerts (1995), Gekowski (2011) and McMurtry (quoted in
Lanham 2009)—cite the rising sales of e-books as evidence of a crisis and
deride the nostalgia of book-loving baby boomers. New York-based Bob
Stein, who visited Australia in 2009 to establish a branch of his Institute
for the Future of the Book, states:

If you think about the book as an object made of printed pages, there is no
future for the book, and it’s an uninteresting discussion. What’s more inter-
esting is to try to understand what role a book plays in our lives … The
book is a vehicle humans use to move ideas around time and space. In all
these conversations about the book, what makes it difficult to talk about
what’s coming is to get over people’s attachment to what was. One of the
hardest things is separating out the nostalgia. (Quoted in Sorensen 2009,
paras 6–7)

Stein’s position is extreme—even among those who are enthusiastic about

the prospect that technology will change publishing and reading. A more
moderate way of looking at this issue is to acknowledge that printed
books will continue—and not merely as antiquarian collectibles—insofar
as they still have utility, readability, marketability and authority. History
proves that new media forms such as television and radio don’t com-
pletely replace existing forms; rather, they shuffle their place and purpose
 Book Towns: Expanding Literary Connections 9

in the cultural field (Bartmanski and Woodward 2015, p. 4). Thus there
are others confident of the book’s future: Striphas (2009), Carrière and
Eco (2011), Zaid (2004), Darnton (2009), Basbanes (1995) and Florence
(quoted in Lindores 2010).
When contemplating the future of books, it is important to note that
books and the publishing industry do not exist in isolation. They are,
and always have been, intrinsic to a broader symbolic and information-­
centred environment or culture, where for a millennium they have
played a vital role as material forms in which content can be embedded,
packaged and communicated to others. Books continue to demand con-
siderable attention in newspapers, in other media and on radio, as well
as providing a staple source of inspiration and raw materials for films and
other forms of popular entertainment. Therefore, books have a rich pub-
lic life beyond the printed page. Book content circulates through a range
of other related cultural mediums, such as international book fairs,
screen festivals and writers’ weeks: ‘these phenomena incubate the adap-
tion of book content into other media, and such adaptions are then mar-
keted back to book-centric audiences’ (Murray 2009). Ongoing literary
prestige therefore creates a ripple effect through the deployment of a
range of adaptions from original literary works. The links not only with
books but also other related media forms, ensure that writers are still
endowed with stature in our society—an accolade arguably accorded to
few other professions.
The prophesized ‘death of reading’ would appear to be at the heart of
much of this debate, with Griswold (2008) observing that in the twenty-­
first century, reading seems to be both honoured and abandoned. She
asks (p. 65), ‘How can the proliferation of reading groups, Trollope web-
sites, book superstores, festivals of the book, and the Oprah effect be part
of the same universe as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
report’s plummeting percentages of readers?’ Dana Gioia, then chair of
the NEA, in his Foreword to Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading
in America (Bradshaw and Nichols 2004, p. vii), links American engage-
ment with literature to people playing a more active role in their com-
munities through volunteerism, philanthropy and even political
involvement. He warns of the danger of ‘losing the intellectual skill and
social habit’ of reading, resulting in a nation that becomes less informed,
10 J. Frank

active and independent-minded, and speaks of the ‘dumbing down’ of

cultural engagement and growing preference for forms that require only
passive participation, such as television and radio, or electronic media
that foster shorter attention spans and accelerated gratification: ‘Print
culture affords irreplaceable forms of focused attention and contempla-
tion that make complex communications and insights possible’ (p. vii).
So, with regard to the question ‘How can books be both ignored and
sacred?’, Griswold (2008) is confident that the answer lies in the
emergence—or re-emergence—of a ‘reading class’ that consists of highly
educated, affluent and young people. The members of this group are
both heavy readers and early adopters of the internet who, ‘exhibiting
the concentration effect’, read more voraciously than readers of the past.
This cohort of avid readers, strong communicators, cultural omnivores—
a segment of Florida’s (2002) ‘creative class’—combines with older, less
technologically advanced, long-committed readers to make up this
‘reading class’. Books, Griswold argues, are increasingly valued by this
cohort. She (2008) uses the term ‘reading class’ rather than ‘reading cul-
ture’ and claims that it applies in developed countries such as Australia
for a whole range of reasons, including increased levels of tertiary educa-
tion, the need for people to engage in public discourse and perhaps the
quest for knowledge via a journey ‘elsewhere’ that books provide (Kenner
1998, p. 3). While it is book culture and this quest for intellectual
engagement that clearly galvanize contemporary book towns around the
globe today, this was not how the entity first identified as a book town
was initially identified.

Tony Seaton: Book Towns and Tourism

The potential of book towns to boost regional tourism has become a
major rationale for their establishment and a significant driver in the
growth of the movement. However, the positive impact of book towns on
tourism was not really recognized until Seaton’s work of the late 1990s.
Despite being a magnet for bibliophiles, throughout the 1970s and much
of the 1980s, Hay tended to be regarded as an eccentric town of books
that successfully injected business activity into a moribund rural area, but
 Book Towns: Expanding Literary Connections 11

not as a centre for ‘cultural tourism’ as that term is now understood

(Seaton 1999, p. 391). When, between 1984 and 1993, four new
European book towns were established in Redu (Belgium), Montolieu
(France), Bécherel (France) and Bredevoort (Holland), the regional econ-
omy was the main focus. Seaton (1997a) stresses that these projects were
conceived as a strategy to economically rejuvenate a rural area, using the
Hay-on-Wye formula of specialized retailing. However, Seaton also
noticed an emergent link between book-based economic strategies and
tourism, commenting that the French towns were positioned as ‘unique
destinations’, even if that remained ‘virtually unnoticed’ elsewhere. It
needs to be recalled that Booth’s original conception of Hay-on-Wye was
as a specialist retail opportunity rather than a tourist development—
indeed, his apparent hostility towards tourism in general and the Wales
Tourist Board in particular meant that no monitoring of Hay as a tourist
attraction occurred for almost 25 years (Seaton 1997a). Nevertheless,
with Hay as a model, the steady expansion of book towns in Europe
increasingly drew attention to the accompanying growth of tourism. It
was Seaton who undertook the first systematic study of book towns as
tourist attractions. This study, which began in 1992, was funded by the
Scottish Tourism Research Unit (STRU), the Scottish Tourist Board and
Scottish Enterprise, with a view to assessing the potential of a book town
in Scotland (Seaton 1997a).
Seaton’s research, which was completed in two parts, focused on book
towns in relation to the generation of tourism. The first report, which
examined Hay-on-Wye, delivered detailed findings to support the conclu-
sion that it had ‘in 35 years … been transformed from a minor ­destination
into a “honeypot” centre with a strong international niche market clien-
tele’ (Seaton 1996a, pp. 26–30). In this work, Seaton enumerated the
book town’s exemplary advantages as a model of sustainable rural tourism.
He discovered that book towns use existing resources to achieve economic
growth; are small in scale, requiring no environment-­threatening changes
that impend the town character; involve relatively small business risks
compared with other tourism initiatives; generate revenue that remains in
the local community rather than benefiting developers or going elsewhere;
stimulate a multiplier effect that benefits a range of other businesses in the
town; have the power to raise the national profile of the country as well as
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