What are Book Towns?
– from the International Organisation of Book Towns website

Alex Johnson signing his book Book Towns at the Sedbergh Festival
Book Towns were the brain‑child of book dealer and self-styled “King” of Hay‑on‑Wye, Richard Booth. In 1961 Hay became the first ever book town, and there are now well over twenty of them around the world.
Compared to Hay‑on‑Wye (which is in Wales by the way), most of the Book Towns that are to be found in Europe, South‑east Asia, North America and Australia are tiddlers. They tend to be small towns or villages located mostly in rural areas, and Sedbergh is no exception.
Sedbergh Book Town
Anyone coming to Sedbergh expecting an “oop North” version of Hay‑on‑Wye, with a dish of tripe on the side, is going to be disappointed – and not just because the local butcher doesn’t normally sell tripe.
There are only a couple of shops in Sedbergh which sell only books (however, one of them is enormous! See below). But there are book outlets in many shops such as Farfield Clothing, No 6 and Sleepy Elephant, while Sedbergh Information and Book Centre has a huge & eclectic range of books from 18 dealers, and you can find books at Farfield Mill Arts and Heritage Centre, a mile away up the road to Hawes. There are also a number of Book Cafes where you can buy books as well as great meals, teas and cakes.

Sedbergh Book Shelter
Finally there is the new Book Shelter, a redundant bus shelter where you can take a book for free, as long as you replace it with another one.
Westwood Books, at the eastern end of Main Street is a family‑run enterprise that moved to Sedbergh from Hay‑on‑Wye in 2005. The former cinema is home to about 70,000 titles at any one time and it’s the sort of place where browsers can lose all sense of time. It’s worth a visit in its own right.
And when your bibliophilic passion is spent – or you just need a little breather – remember that Sedbergh is also a rather nice little town, with cakes and ale and stunning views. Round off your day with one of the gentle ambles described on our Things to do around Sedbergh page.
– Eric Robson, writer, broadcaster and our patron