In Spain, of course, they know that reading has a magical power, so magical at times that excessive readers may at some point no longer be able to distinguish between fiction and truth, between books and reality, between giants and windmills. But whether there are still any windmills in the small town of Urueña in the north-west of the country, that’s for sure New York Times not at all researchedwhen she recently visited this extraordinary place.
On the other hand, what should be there: enough editions of “Don Quixote”, because in Urueña, which has just 100 inhabitants and neither a butcher nor a baker, there are nine bookstores, two other shops sell books on the side. So there is about one bookshop for every ten inhabitants. Just for comparison: In Berlin that would be 330,000 bookstores (according to figures from 2020, however, there are only 227. And with that, Berlin already had the most bookstores in Germany).
So are 100 well-fed bookworms hiding behind the rustic 13th-century city walls in Urueña? Not quite. Rather, the town has actively cultivated the book trade since 2007, acquired subsidies and attracted sellers with a symbolic 10-euro monthly rent. They want to counteract the rural exodus here, and as a literature stronghold, they want to attract bookworm tourists – it’s only a two-hour drive from Madrid. And whoever reads a lot and travels a lot, as Don Quijote author Miguel de Cervantes already knew, sees and experiences a lot. Also that there are no more windmills in Urueña.
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