Booktown - Featherston
Monday 27th August 2018 finds me in the South Wairarapa town of Featherston - a place that I have driven through many times, but never stopped, on my way to or from Wellington...it's one of those blink and you'll miss it places.
Featherston is one of the latest towns (in 2015) to declare themselves a "Book Town".
So what is a book town? I hear you ask.
Myself, I believed that the concept of book towns was a fairly recent phenomenon - thinking that the first book town was started by Richard Booth in Hay-On-Wye, Wales.
The accepted modern definition of a book town is a small town with an economy that is dwindling, usually due to factory closures or other economic downturn, that over a relative short period of time fills empty shops with books - usually but not always second hand books - as a gimmick to attract tourists, visitors and book lovers and hopefully turn around the towns economic woes.
But according to the all knowing Wikipedia, I could be wrong.
Kanda-Jinbōchō, commonly known as Jinbōchō or Jimbocho , a district of Tokyo, Japan is they tell me, well known as Tokyo's center of used-book stores and publishing houses.
In 1913, a large fire destroyed most of the area. In the wake of the fire, a university professor named Shigeo Iwanami opened a bookstore in Jinbōchō which grew into today's Iwanami Shoten publishing house. Over time, as the area became more popular with university students and intellectuals, many small bookstores and cafes opened there.
Depending on which website you believe, there are either 140 or 176 second hand book stores currently operating there. So, Jinbocho possibly lays claims to being the first ever "book town".
However, the more modern concept of a book town was brought about by Richard Booth when he changed the lagging economy of Hay-On-Wye by firstly opening his large second hand book store there and secondly encouraging other book sellers to relocate to Hay and open up their own shops.
By the 1970's Hay had become internationally known as the Town of Books.
There are today over 20 book shops in Hay-on -Wye and their book festivals are attended by many thousands of eager bibliophiles, dwarfing the meager population of about one and a half thousand residents.
Their main book festival takes place in May each year and in 2019 starts on 23rd May and ends 2nd June. Book your accommodation early....you'll be competing with 80,000 other book lovers.
Scotland's book town is Wigtown (named Scotland's book town in 1998), home to about a dozen book sellers, although some shops have books for sale during the book festival as an addition to their usual fare. Get your skates on if you want to get to this years festival as it starts on September 21st.
Probably the most famous of Wigtown's book sellers is Shaun Bythell owner of the very cleverly and originally named "The Book Shop" - a converted Victorian House with multiple rooms and over 100 thousand books on about a mile of shelving.
Shaun wrote a book about his experiences running The Book Shop entitled "The Diary of a Bookseller" - a witty, sarcastic and irreverent account about the idiosyncrasies of customers and staff encountered daily in his shop.
And.....in a long winded way....Shaun is the reason that I am here in Featherston.
He is here today to promote his book and spread the word that the world of bookshops is still alive (just) but fighting an uphill battle against the likes of Amazon and other on-line sellers and needs us the people who still buy and read books to throw our weight and our wallets behind supporting the bricks and mortar book selling establishments.
Yes, much of the time (but not always) it is possible to buy books a few dollars cheaper from Amazon, but in doing so we run the risk of losing our physical book shops.....the ones we like to browse in. Those warrens of shelf after shelf of new and used books, each one a promising new adventure once we turn the first page.
Please don't be one of those people who browse the books in the local shop, note down the author and title and then go and order it on Amazon...or worse still - buy the Kindle edition - Oh the shame of it! You really should be tarred and feathered! OR since we're in Featherston.....feathered and stoned!
I arrived in Featherston early - I like to get to places in good time - so decided to have a bite to eat in the Everest Cafe and then browse the bookstores.
The Everest Cafe was recommended to me by my Airbnb host Bella who's home I will be staying in tonight.
The service and food at the cafe are both very good. The cafe is situated at the southern end of town on the main drag, Fitzherbert Street. and a link to their website is below...
http://everestbistro.nz/
I can recommend the ground beef burger with everything and they serve a very nice cup of coffee.
After a very filling lunch I felt I needed a good walk around the township, where I visited a couple of the book shops. First one was "For the Love of Books" - website .... https://www.welovebooks.nz/
They had a good selection of both fiction and non-fiction titles and I amazed myself when I left the shop empty handed.
The streets of Featherston were almost empty, hardly surprising on a Monday afternoon in winter I suppose. Unfortunately it also appeared that a number of shops chose Monday, along with Sunday to be their days to stay closed.
My next stop was to be Messines Book Shop (https://www.messinesbooks.co.nz/), which specialises in Military History - but, you've guessed it, it was closed. It only opens Thursday through Sunday, so I was out of luck there.
I carried on down to Loco Coffee and Books where I was greeted by Kate, the owner who asked if I was there for coffee or books....my answer was... probably both, but books first and was left to browse the shelves.
I'm not sure why, but recently I have been reading quite a lot of books about book shops or libraries or book collectors, including Jen Campbell's - The Bookshop Book, The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw, Chris Paling's - Reading Allowed and of course Shaun Bythells book - The Diary of a Bookseller. I think the one that started me off on this path was "Shakespeare and Company Paris (A history of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart)" - a book acquired from Shakespeare & Co when I visited the shop on the banks of the Seine in 2016 - and detailing the very quirky history of a very quirky book shop...and its owner.
It was no surprise then when I selected a book in Loco Coffee and Books by John Baxter, called A Pound of Paper and subtitled Confessions of a Book Addict.
It's about Baxter's love for books and how he became an avid collector. It's entertaining, informative and humorous. BUT like all the books I have just mentioned, the authors are forever talking about great books that they have read, so by the time you get to the end of each book, you have jotted down a list of several pages of book titles to add to your "must read" list.
I got chatting to Kate about books and the reason that I was visiting Featherston - Shaun Bythell's author event - and she not only knocked $5 off the price of Baxter's book, but also told me that Shaun Bythell himself would be calling in to the shop "any time now".
That was my cue to buy a coffee and take a seat in one of the easy chairs in the shop window and settle down for a read of my new purchase.
Within a few moments though, in walked Shaun, with an attractive blonde lady who's name escapes me and Lincoln Gould - the owner of Messines Bookshop.
Kate very thoughtfully introduced me to them all and I got to have a chat with Shaun and he good naturedly agreed to having his photo taken with me.....sure enough I am beaming like an idiot....but at least, for once I have my eyes open on the photo.
Having already read Shaun's book I was half expecting some caustic retort when I asked him for a photo, so was pleasantly surprised by his reaction.
I left the shop and headed back to my accommodation and my comfortable room with a large 4 poster bed, to freshen up and have another read of my new purchase to pass the time until 6.15pm when I left to walk around to Tarureka Estate in good time for a 6.30 opening.
Shaun's author event was to be in The Loft at Taureka.
A quick beer at the downstairs bar - a beer fittingly called "Bookbinder" and then upstairs to the loft to claim a seat next to the stage for the event.
I believe that even Shaun was surprised at the turn out. Featherston - lets face it is a tiny place...AND it was a cold winters Monday night, yet over 120 people filled every chair in The Loft - more attendees I am told, than turned up for the same event in Auckland a couple of days earlier.
It was a very pleasant evening with readings from the book - naturally - and a discussion with Sue Ryan of the shop "Mr Feathers Den" during which Shaun recounted humorous experiences of his shop, of Wigtown and about booktowns in general.
Afterwards we all retired to the downstairs bar for book signings, drinks and nibbles.
Why is it that I have flashes of inspiration after the event, rather than at the moment I am there?
I bought a hard cover copy of his book and he signed it for me "To Malcolm - thanks for making the effort to come" - he did seem quite impressed that I'd driven almost 3 hours to get there.....or perhaps amazed that anyone would be crazy enough to. In hind sight I would have preferred him to have written "to Malcolm - OK I've sighed the book, now stop stalking me!"
A short but rather bracing walk found me back at Bella's, who was waiting in the lounge for me. It was the first time we had met, but we got along very well and chatted away for a good couple of hours.....once she'd rescued me from my jacket that is.
It being a cold evening I was wearing a scarf wrapped several times round my neck and stuffed into the front of my jacket....and managed to get the scarf caught in the jackets zip as i tried to remove it on arrival back at the house. I was initially trying to free the scarf from the zip surreptitiously - hoping that my host wouldn't realize that I had managed to entangle myself. However, every move I made to free the scarf actually made matters worse and in the end I had part of the scarf between my teeth as I held the bottom of the jacket taught with one hand and yanked on the zip with the other.....all the time attempting to make polite conversation.
After several convulsive failed efforts to free myself I admitted defeat and very unsurreptitiously pulled the jacket, with scarf still attached, over my head and threw it on the floor....like a petulant child.
Without pause and still chatting away to me as if nothing had happened and as if it was perfectly normal for guests to struggle straitjacket-like with their clothing, Bella casually reached across, picked up the jacket off the floor and within seconds the scarf was free.
Featherston's booktown festival is in May 2019 - 9th to the 12th of May to be exact.
Judging by my recent experience a visit to the festival will be well worth while and I encourage any readers to give Featherston a chance.....don't just drive through. Stop the car and have a wander around.....they're a friendly bunch of folk in Featherston.
https://www.booktown.org.nz/
