Collecting Book Towns by Tracy Darnton

I was given the lovely Book Towns by Alex Johnson when I reached a certain age by one of the kids. Turns out my mid-life crisis is not to get a motorbike or do the Marathon des Sables but rather to tick off visits to book towns. 

Most recently I visited Fjaerland in Norway. This is not a place you just pop out to. But I like to earn my ticks so I went from Bath via YALC at Olympia, Heathrow to Oslo, train to Myrdal, mountain railway via Kjosfossen Waterfall to Flåm, boat to Balestrand, and finally smaller boat to Fjaerland on the Sognefjord, in the shadow of the Jostedalsbreen glacier. 

Room with a view

I suspect there may have been a quicker way but my way was worth it for the breathtaking scenery on the journey. It was such a beautiful calming place. We had the best meal we had in Norway and the quirkiest room at the Fjaerland Fjordstue hotel with a stunning view of the colourful fjord. 

It was the perfect place to chill, write and, of course, read. And the walking was a winning literary combination of Heidi and the Hobbit’s Misty Mountains: 

My purchases were limited as nearly all the books were in Norwegian. I have six words of Norwegian and I’m not even sure how to spell those but luckily I always like musty old books and looking at vintage covers and generally mooching about in old sheds.

And, on reflection, since I’m incapable of visiting Hay-on-Wye without coming away with a bagful of books to add to the TBR pile, visiting only foreign book towns in future could be the way to go.

In short, Fjaerland was one of those places that’s good for the soul. So when I am long gone and my current shiny debut The Truth About Lies is remaindered or pulped, I hope a copy finds its way down the fjords to Fjaerland to see out its days on a shelf with a beautiful view. 

Next stop…Wigtown or Buenos Aires.

Follow Tracy on Twitter @TracyDarnton

Another Library Under Threat

I don’t suppose I’m different from anyone else, but I love my hometown, Hay-on-Wye. It’s referred to as the Book Town because we have so many bookshops. They are all second-hand bookshops, but they are great. You’d be hard pressed not to find a book on your chosen subject.

We also have a ruined castle dating back to the 13^th century, a clock tower that tolls the time quarter-hourly, art and craft galleries, stylish clothes shops, butter and cheese markets, antiques and a world-renowned literary festival.

If you’ve ever been to Hay Festival you’ll know how fantastic it is. For ten days each year our population is multiplied fifty times over and we rub shoulders with book-lovers and authors alike. The festival has its own bookshop stacked with brand new books and people sit all over the site reading. I love the smell of a new book and the crack of the spine when I open it for the first time.

You would expect a book town with so many bookshops and a literary festival to have a library, and we do. It is run by the noisiest librarian in the west! Jayne is amazing. She finds books for us, reads to our children and helps with any query, book-related or not. She has computer classes at the library, a ton of information about the town and meet-the-author events. She knows about books, old and new, and generally brightens the day of anyone who meets her. We borrow books, pretty much as many as we want and, for three weeks at a time, they are ours to hold and to value and, above all, to read.

Sadly, the Book Town’s library, like so many others, is under threat. Powys County Council is seeking to reduce the library’s costs by half, I am not sure if that is before or after the Festival’s yearly contribution of £11,000. Now, you might say we have to accept cuts and I agree, but not to a library that is only open sixteen hours a week.

We will learn our fate tomorrow, but with a budget of £163m and a reputation for being inefficient, I would have thought there might be many other ways to save £18,000 a year rather than knocking the heart out of the Book Town.