Book Towns: An Unfolding Story

Frank concludes her study of the international Book Town Movement by arguing that while urban centres play an important role in contemporary print culture, and more broadly in cultural life, that the ways in which people engage with arts and cultural debates are in a process of transformation. Less conventional spaces on the periphery—book towns—are emerging as vital hubs of artistic creation, festival culture and consumption. Fundamental to this shift, Frank argues, is that book towns are both linking mechanisms and symbolic entities, and the book a device that synthesizes aspects of our culture and history: the places where we live, our understandings of ourselves, our cultural industries that bring vitality. Frank argues that book towns will continue to fulfil important social, cultural and economic needs in society.