Hobart Book Village

How cute is this? An New York upstate town in Delaware County in the Catskills in 2005 officially became known as Hobert Book Village, with a zip code of 13788.

The addresses are Hobert, but the place is really a bookstore village within a population of somewhere near 400, with no less than seven bookstores, sometimes next to each other, on Main Street by virtue of an entrepreneur Dan Dales who took advantage of the town's offer to rent storefronts for $1 for the first year in order to boost commerce in the town. It worked. The town was on the map, but is now known as Hobart Bookstore Village.

New York has several counties. And some have unexpected names. There's Delaware County and Wyoming County. There's Cattaraugus and Chautauqua. There are unexpected town names as well. A massively fatal head-on collision occurred over the weekend leaving six people dead. It happened on a two lane road in icy conditions in Louisville, very close to the Canadian border in St. Lawrence County. Yes Virginia, Kentucky is not the only place you'll find a Louisville.

Small towns have bookstores. As large as New York City is, there are few actually browesable bookstores. The rents are too high, and it's far more profitable to sell coffee at $7 a cup.

This past Sunday on the last page of the Book Review section, The NYT does a visual essay on Hobart Book Village. There are 10 high quality photos in the online edition of the essay. Where is Hobart?

William H. Adams's Antiquarian Books

 Hobart New York, a tiny community nestled in the Catskills in   Delaware County, population just north of 400, a three-hour drive   from  the City. There are no less than eight bookstores, all on Main   Street, with some right next to each other. Each store sort of has their   own specialty of items: antique books published before 1850; cook   books, New York themed volumes.

 I've probably been in more bookstores in Vermont than New York.   Vermont is considered the most rural state in the Union because of the   many towns with tiny populations. Per capita, it might lead in   bookstores.

Bleinham Bookstore

I've been to Hermit Books in Poultney, Vermont Books in Middlebury, The Book Store in Brandon, and Northshire in Manchester Center. In Saratoga, New York Northshire has another outlet to replace the Borders store that was once there, and The Lyric. on Phila Street, containing horse racing themed books. All the stores are staffed by knowledgeable people who have read the books. There is sometimes a sleepy cat in the window. Cats everywhere are always sleepy.

I don't remember where it was in Vermont, but there was a giant barn holding used books. I think it more a book depository than a retail outlet. But just another example of where the rent is cheap, you'll find books.

Oddly, Hobart College, a private liberal arts school is not in Hobart, but rather Geneva, a town that sits on top of Seneca Lake, one of New York's Finger Lakes.

On annual trips to Saratoga for racing there is a dark day they do not race. Now it is Monday and Tuesday. But when we went for a longer stretch at the track we would always search for somethnig to do on the dark day. That is how umptenn years ago we went to Cambridge, New York and visited the nuns at New Skete, famous for making cheese cake and fruit cake. 

This year we ordered the fruit cake, and it is nearly gone. They also make a to-die for cheesecake in several flavors. Their cakes however are not distributed down here. You can get them the Hannaford supermarkets in the area. They do ship however, and it is worth it.

But since Saratoga went dark two consecutive, we no longer are in the area for a dark day. A drive to Hobart from Saratoga Springs is 95 miles, and might just be outside the mileage we'd take if we were  in the area for a dark day.

It is doubtful I'll ever get to Hobart Book Village, 13788, but I'd like to.

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Vermont barn...