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Regenerating Regional Culture pp 163–193Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Sacred Objects and Magic Encyclopaedias: Books in Book Towns

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Part of the book series: Sociology of the Arts ((SOA))

Abstract

Frank explores the dimensions of book culture exploited and enhanced by book towns and attributes the success of the book town phenomenon to the book as a unique commodity—a beautiful artefact, a container of ideas and a marker of history. She unpacks the unique relationship between book collectors and their books to distinguish books from other items of material culture, tracing the particular experience of Texan founder of Archer City book town and book collector, Larry McMurtry. Collecting books, Frank argues, is an egalitarian occupation. She connects the desire for books to nostalgia for a romanticized past, while also recognizing the book as a cosmopolitan symbol representing intellectual debate and meaningful human interaction.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Refer to https://www.bookedupac.com

  2. 2.

    City of Archer City, http://www.archercity.org/about-archercity.html

  3. 3.

    The sixteenth-century French nobleman Jean Grolier de Servières of Lyons, a man dedicated to beautiful books and bindings, collected a distinctive style of binding designs sourced during many diplomatic missions to Italy. Grolier possessed one of the finest private libraries of his time (and possibly any other time), consisting of some 3000 volumes contained within bindings of superlative richness and beauty. Grolier is considered the first modern bibliophile (Basbanes 1995, p. 81).

  4. 4.

    Sociologist and collector Professor Adrian Franklin was a panel member on the Australian ABC television series Collectors (2005–2011), which reinvigorated interest in collecting in Australia, including the 2012 Queensland Museum interactive exhibition What Do You Collect? See http://www.whatdoyoucollect.com.au

  5. 5.

    The close connection between books and memory and the book collector’s ‘DNA’ is analysed by Hill (2009, p. 202), Marshall (2004, p. 281), Fadiman (1998, pp. ix–xi, 122), Zaid (2004, p. 11), Basbanes (1995, p. 9), Hazlitt (1928, p. 221), Steffens (2009, p. viii), Spufford (2002, p. 9) and a host of others.

  6. 6.

    Jacques de Decker, one time secretaire perpetual de l’Academie royale de langue et literature francaise de Belgique, wrote the preface to Nöel Anselot’s (2004) book town memoir, Redu.

  7. 7.

    Australian bookshop proprietors are forced to buy from the Australian representatives of overseas publishing houses who dictate the price. According to Berkelouw, Australian book prices are much too high—a situation that needs to change (personal interview, 2012).

  8. 8.

    However, as previously explained, this is not necessarily the case in nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

  9. 9.

    For example, the total value of book sales in Australia grew by an annual average of 5.2% from 2005 to 2010—far higher than the growth rates in comparable international markets such as Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and other comparable Australian sectors such as creative industries (PriceWaterhouseCoopers Report 2011, quoted in White 2011, p. 3).

  10. 10.

    Refer to ‘The State and Future of Independent Bookselling in the UK’. Ribbonfish, 17 June 2016, https://www.ribbonfish.co.uk/blog/the-state-and-future-of-independent-bookselling-in-the-uk

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

    Jane Frank

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Frank, J. (2018). Sacred Objects and Magic Encyclopaedias: Books in Book Towns. In: Regenerating Regional Culture. Sociology of the Arts . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65036-4_5

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