A book town is a rural town in which second-hand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. The concept was 11 by Richard Booth, who opened the first second-hand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, UK in 1961. Following him, many local people opened their own bookshops, and the small town soon became a model of sustainable rural development and tourism. Since the 1970s, book towns like Hay-on-Wye 12 up all over the world. Although all book towns have a great number of bookshops, that’s where the similarities 13 . Each of these towns shows unique features of its own. Some have many small private shops, while others have organizations steered by volunteers. Some even run regular activities to attract visitors. For example, an annual book festival is held in Hay-on-Wye. Clunes, in Australia, holds a monthly book talk that hosts authors to discuss their latest 14 . As digital reading is changing our traditional way of reading, book towns like Hay-on-Wye are particularly important to 15 . The feel of a book, the smell, the weight, and the knowledge that a particular book might be more than a hundred years old—all these highlight the importance of preserving the physical book as a complement to technology.