Whether you call it a Boekenstad, Village du Livres, Bokby, or Bókabæirnir, from Canada to Korea, and from Iceland to Australia, a movement to create book towns is growing. By visiting these towns you’re not only helping to save the printed book; you’re helping to keep communities alive. 

In hamlets, villages and towns around the world, like-minded booksellers, calligraphers, bookbinders, curators, publishers, and architects are coming together to ensure a future for the printed book, defying the e-book onslaught, and providing a new future for fading communities. 

Excerpted and adapted from Book Towns: Forty-Five Paradises of the Printed Word by Alex Johnson. It’s the first book to bring all of these towns together, offering a unique history of each one, and encouraging readers to seek them out. Frances Lincoln Books/Quarto Publishing, plc, ©2018, reprinted by permission. Read More→