Would you feel at home in a town where every resident is described by how they feel about books or how they are involved with books? What about a town where the most important buildings are the library and the bookstores? Welcome to Biblioville.
And if one loves books and reading, doesn’t it stand to reason they would also be engaged in epeolatry, word worship? Not everyone in Biblioville is a member of the Epeolatrists, but the majority are. Their goal is to rid their town of incorrectly used, mispronounced, or misspelled words whether they be in dialogue or the printed word. Their opinion is that each time someone misuses, mispronounces, or misspells a word, they should have to take a remedial course in spelling and pronunciation. This law only needs a few more votes to pass. The ones who are against it did the unforgivable: they flunked spelling or don’t care enough to find out what a word means or how it is pronounced before using it.
Bibliopegy, the art of binding books, is a flourishing business here. But instead of competing with one another for business, the bibliopegists in town work together to find better ways of binding books, ways that keep present and future works of literature from being torn up by toddlers or ripped to pieces by dogs. They also want book bindings and covers to be impervious to teeth and claw marks from cats.
The largest building in Biblioville is the bibliotheca, the library. It is the center of all activities in the town and is always overflowing with the townspeople as well as visitors even though each house also has its own personal library. Bibliolaters, people who admire books, lovingly gaze at the book-filled shelves. Bookaholics, those who love books, and bookworms, those unusually devoted to reading and study, are sitting at the tables surrounded by objects of their affection stacked high in front of them. It doesn’t take long for such people to become bibliognasts, well-read individuals with a wide knowledge of books.
All around the library are bookstores for those who don’t just want to read the books but want to have them in their possession forever. Once the bibliolaters, bookaholics, and bookworms leave the library, they all flock into the stores to purchase the books they can’t bear to leave behind.
Is it wrong to have bibliolatry or bibliophilia, a great or excessive love of books? How would someone with bibliolatry act? I mean, you wouldn’t take a book out to dinner, but you could read while eating dinner. I guess a person with bibliolatry could also have bibliomania, a passionate enthusiasm for collecting and possessing books.
A bibliophile would also be known as a book collector because their love of books is so great. A bibliophagist is a voracious reader; one who devours books as though their life is dependent upon it. Someone who is book-bosomed—a person who always carries books with them (this is me)—would they be considered to have bibliophilia? Would such a person carry a Kindle or Nook with them so they would have an entire library of books to choose from?
https://bookbosomed-id.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-is-book-bosomed.html
Tsundoku is the term for acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. All the residents of Biblioville do this. Some have all of their books arranged more neatly than others, but all have at least a couple dozen books they’ve not yet read. Some have way more. How many of us are guilty of doing this? I know I am. We would be right at home in Biblioville.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku
Could one who is book-bosomed and engages in tsundoku also be described as a bibliobibuli, a person who reads too much? I really don’t think one can read too much though. A bibliobibuli is one who gets drunk on books just as one would get drunk on alcohol.
The bibliopoles—those who buy and sell books, especially rare ones—that live in Biblioville also enjoy bibliosmia, the smell and aroma of a good book. One has trouble getting their attention when trying to conduct business with them or simply have a conversation with them as they so often have their noses stuck in a book.
Some visit Biblioville under doctor’s orders. They’ve got some serious personal problems for which they could use psychiatric therapy but have instead opted to be prescribed bibliotherapy to aid them in getting better. A two-week vacation is arranged for minor problems while a four-week stay is prescribed for more intense therapy. There are about a dozen rooms built within the main library where people undergoing bibliotherapy are invited to stay, and many of their prescribed books are kept in their room. This way, their therapy can start as soon as they wake up in the morning.
What about audiobooks? Do they count as an addiction for bibliophiles? After all, there are no physical pages that you gently take hold of and turn. A Kindle, Nook, or other e-reader just doesn’t have any distinctive smell that one would become addicted to. But these e-readers contain the most important thing for bibliophiles: books.
Those who write and edit books, newspapers, and magazines are some of the most respected residents (past and present) of Biblioville. This city wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for their hard work in creating the tales that make each book and story unique.
Unfortunately, there are some who aren’t welcome in Biblioville. Bibliokleptomania is an uncontrollable impulse to steal books. The below video is from “The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye,” an episode of The Queens of Mystery. It features an individual with bibliokleptomania.
Biblioklepts would love to visit Biblioville but are forbidden from doing so. Biblioclasts have an unhealthy urge to destroy or mutilate books. Such people will only be allowed to visit once they can prove they are cured.
Writing Prompts
Why not write a story that includes Biblioville or another town similar to it?
What other people do you think would live in a town like Biblioville?
What sort of mysteries take place in this town? Romances?
Has there ever been a murder in Biblioville?
Make this town the center of a fantasy story where the books take on a life of their own or where people have the ability to walk into a book and live out the story.
And every library needs at least one cat. Create a gang of cats that live in this town’s library. Have they ever had to protect the books from being stolen or destroyed?
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