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Book towns: villages where books take centre stage

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Can you imagine arriving in a village of a few hundred or a few thousand people and finding a bookshop every few steps?

Not one or two, but so many that books have become part of the place's identity.

They really do exist, and they're called book towns (villas del libro in Spanish): towns and villages that have staked their future on books and bookshops as a way of attracting visitors and giving the place a new lease of life.

Many grew up around second-hand, antiquarian or out-of-print books, although over time the concept has broadened. Today you'll also find independent bookshops, festivals, markets and all kinds of reading-related activities.

The idea began in Hay-on-Wye, in Wales, in the early sixties, and from there it gradually spread across Europe and then to other parts of the world. There's even an International Association of Booktowns, which links many of these projects.

And yes, we have our own book towns in Spain too.

One of Ureña's bookshops. Photo: International Association of Booktowns.

01 · SPAIN

Ureña (Spain)

Ureña was Spain's first book town.

Valladolid Provincial Council launched the project in 2007, inspired by other European book towns such as Hay-on-Wye and Redu.

Today it has eleven bookshops, each with its own speciality. On their shelves you'll find everything from comics and children's books to titles on food, film, journalism and calligraphy.

Add to that the Centro e-LEA Miguel Delibes, devoted to reading and writing, the Fundación Joaquín Díaz, and museums and workshops connected with books and culture.

And all of this inside a small medieval town ringed by a wall you can still walk along.

If you've ever daydreamed about spending a morning popping in and out of little bookshops without having to cross half a city to find the next one, Ureña comes pretty close.

02 · SPAIN

Calonge (Spain)

Since 2021 we've had another book town in Spain, this time in Girona.

Calonge, Poble de Llibres was created with a very specific aim: to use books to revitalise the old town culturally, socially and economically.

It now has six bookshops, all very close to one another. Two are general bookshops and the rest specialise in areas as varied as comics, history, music, and sewing and crafts.

But the project isn't just about bookshops. All year round there are book launches, readings, concerts, talks, fairs and other book-related activities.

Calonge describes itself as Catalonia's first permanent booktown, and on top of that, you're right in the heart of the Empordà, just a few kilometres from the Costa Brava, so it's not exactly a bad spot for a literary getaway either.

A street bookstall in Calonge, Poble de Llibres. Photo: International Association of Booktowns.

Hay Castle's “honesty” bookshop, in Hay-on-Wye. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

03 · WALES (UNITED KINGDOM)

Hay-on-Wye (Wales)

This is where it all began.

In 1961, the bookseller Richard Booth began filling some of the empty premises in Hay-on-Wye, a small town on the border between Wales and England, with second-hand books.

The idea worked far better than anyone could probably have expected.

Hay-on-Wye ended up becoming the first book town, and to this day it's known all over the world for its second-hand, antiquarian and specialist bookshops. Some hold hundreds of thousands of books, while others are devoted to subjects as specific as maps, nature, crime fiction or science fiction.

And since 1988 it has also hosted the Hay Festival, which over the years has become one of the great international literary festivals.

If you love rummaging through shelves without quite knowing what you'll find, you could easily spend a few hours here.

04 · BELGIUM

Redu (Belgium)

Hay-on-Wye's idea didn't take long to cross borders.

At Easter 1984, the little village of Redu, in the Belgian Ardennes, held a big antiquarian and second-hand book market for the first time.

Over those three days it welcomed nearly 15,000 visitors. For a village of just a few hundred people, it was quite a milestone. And so began Redu, Village du Livre.

Today it has around a dozen specialist and general bookshops, as well as other shops and workshops. On their shelves you'll find books on nature, history, travel, music, archaeology, children's literature and comics.

Every Easter it holds its big market again, and throughout the year it organises other book-related activities.

Stone houses, bookshops and the forests of the Ardennes all around. What more could you ask for?

Books for sale in the streets of Redu. Photo: International Association of Booktowns.

The Wigtown Book Festival, in Scotland's National Book Town. Photo: International Association of Booktowns.

05 · SCOTLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)

Wigtown (Scotland)

Wigtown shows particularly well that a book town can be much more than a place full of bookshops.

During the nineties, the town was going through a difficult time, with many empty shops and homes. The idea of becoming a book town came about precisely as a way of bringing it back to life.

In 1998 Wigtown was named Scotland's National Book Town, and its literary festival was born shortly afterwards.

Today it has seventeen bookshops and book-related businesses, plus literary activities all year round.

Every autumn it also hosts the Wigtown Book Festival, which brings together several days of author events, children's activities, music, theatre and, of course, plenty of books.

In this case, the books didn't arrive because Wigtown had a great literary history behind it.

They came to help build a new one.

06 · REST OF EUROPE

Other book towns in Europe

Ureña, Calonge, Hay-on-Wye, Redu and Wigtown are just a few examples.

The idea has spread across much of Europe, with projects in places such as Fjærland in Norway, Saint-Pierre-de-Clages in Switzerland, Borrby in Sweden, Sysmä in Finland, Wünsdorf-Waldstadt in Germany and Montereggio in Italy, among others. And the international network keeps welcoming new towns.

Each one has made the idea its own.

Some keep bookshops open all year round. Others focus much of their activity on festivals, markets or book-related gatherings.

And some of the stories are especially curious. Montereggio, for example, has been linked for generations to families of travelling booksellers who journeyed across Italy selling books. That tradition would also end up being connected with the birth of the Premio Bancarella, one of the country's historic literary prizes.

Montereggio, Tuscany's “paese dei librai” (booksellers' village). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

So, are you up for it?

An idea that has travelled much further

Nor did book towns stay in Europe. Today the international network includes projects as far afield as Clunes in Australia and Featherston in New Zealand, which also hosted the international book towns gathering in 2024.

And perhaps that's the most curious part of the whole story: many of these towns didn't become literary destinations because a famous writer was born there or because they appeared in a novel. Someone simply thought that books could help bring their streets back to life.

And it looks like the idea worked.

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