By Christine Yunn-Yu Sun
Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh famously said: “So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.”
American comedian and actor Jerry Seinfeld put it more bluntly: “A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”
The idea of a “book crawl” is to explore a (new) place via the bookstores there.
Such a trip is often curated by individuals or small groups seeking to connect with books and each other, but it’s also great to fly solo.
Bookstores, like people, have their unique characters, so book crawls are personalised and first-hand experiences of different shops and their staff of diverse backgrounds, as well as the distinct communities they belong to.
These are cultural and intellectual experiences never to be replaced by shopping online.
Even better, they enrich our relationships with books and inspire meaningful and fulfilling reading journeys.
By the time this article is published, the first Global Book Crawl (April 21-27) will have just concluded.
This annual celebration of independent bookstores opens a window into the passion for books shared by readers, writers and booksellers.
Coordinated by three indie booksellers in Spain, Ireland and Brooklyn, the Global Book Crawl invites each participating city or town to organise a book crawl tailored to its unique community, “requiring only creativity and local collaboration, while benefiting from the global reach and shared excitement of a worldwide movement”.
As of this writing, the Global Book Crawl website lists 64 cities and towns across 17 countries joining forces in the international initiative – from Argentina to Austria, from Iceland to Italy, from Malaysia to Mexico, and from Switzerland to Sweden, just to name a few.
In Australia alone, over 60 bookstores participated in the global event across cities and regions such as the Blue Mountains, Hobart, Melbourne, Mornington Peninsula, Newcastle, North East Victoria, and Sydney. More bookstores in other areas are expected to jump onboard in the years to come.
Commenting on the event, legendary Australian bookseller Mark Rubbo said: “Australia’s independent bookshops play a leading role in showing people how great our own writers are…Australian creatives now tend to stay and develop their work in Australia, because there is demand for their work and they are appreciated.”
However, these days, with books competing against screens for people’s time and interest, and with physical bookshops competing against online booksellers, it is a challenge to get people back into bookstores – and that’s what book crawls are all about.
“It’s to show people how wonderful the bookshops are, where people can discover books so much better than online,” Rubbo said.
“It’s for people to realise what a wonderful pleasure it is to find a good book and read it, to get lost in it.”
And, particularly in Melbourne, book crawls are also about discovering some awesome cake and coffee shops along the way. The idea is definitely worth celebrating!
