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Friday, January 25, 2008

Book Villages!

Bookshops, seen many. Book Fairs became Book Festivals, that also I have seen. But BOOK VILLAGES? I have read about it only today. Probably some of you might have already known. The concept of Book Village is quite fascinating for a bibliophile – a book-lover.

But, sorry, it is not new. The article which enlightened me on this is quite old. It was published in the June 1991 issue of Reader’s Digest. So the Book Villages are there for more than 16 years!

After graduation in Oxford, Richard Booth, 20, returned to his native village, Hay-on-Wye. He found the village dying out. He wanted to find a way to revive it. That is how the idea of a Book Village started. He gave the villagers useful work, selling books. Hay-on-Wye became the used-book capital of Britain. By 1990, he had 15 book stores in Hay with over half a million books in stock.

Belgian Noel Anselot, journalist, oil-company executive and intelligence agent, kept hearing in 1984 that Europe’s old villages are dying out. He owned a 16th century stone house in Redu, an old village, about 125 kilometers away from Brussels. Anselot loved the calm and serene Redu, surrounded by farmlands, woods and streams. He also loved Books. He moved to Redu permanently and converted his property into a gigantic bookstore. Everybody thought he was crazy. When Booth learned about Anselot’s plans, he was glad to support him. With a lot of publicity, the Redu Book Fair was opened in 1984. More than 12,000 people came to the Fair. The locals leased out to booksellers the abandoned homes and stables, which were improvised into bookshops.

By 1990, Redu had 23 bookstores and several other related service units.

Anselot says, “There are plenty of bookstores in the big cities, but there you don’t have the time to browse quietly, and the store-owner , with his space at premium, does not want you to do, either. But in a book village like Redu you have all the room and all the time in the world. And with 5,00,000 books here, you are bound to find something of interest.”

These Book Villages are becoming a sort of pilgrimage for booklovers all over the world.

In France, Colette Trublet was charmed by the quiet village Becherel in Brittany, which was also dying out. He caught hold of the idea of Book Village to revive Becherel. Now Becherel is growing into third Book Village of Europe.

The idea of Book Village is spreading to other countries. Book Villages are coming up in Japan and Russia.

Maybe some day somebody in India will also take up this idea and you will have one or maybe several book villages in the country. Let us always hope!

- Based on “Villages saved by Books” by Robert Wernick, Reader’s Digest, June 1991.

My grateful thanks to Robert Wernick and Reader’s Digest.

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