Some 13 Wairarapa book stores have worked together to produce a Booklover’s Trail App in what is a New Zealand first, modelled on the Heritage Wine Trail across the region.
The free-to-download Featherston Booktown Booklover’s Trail App aims to connect booklovers with Wairarapa booksellers and their stories. The app provides a self-guided tour that takes listeners on a comprehensive journey of the region’s many bookstores and literary sites.
“It is certainly something we came up with, that Featherston Booktown came up with for the Wairarapa, and I haven’t seen anything like it in New Zealand … or overseas,” Featherston Booktown operations manager Mary Biggs told The Star.
“Pre-Covid visits to Britain’s literary homes … like Virginia Woolf’s house … was part of the thinking that it’s such an interesting way to see a country.”
“It’s another way to view the Wairarapa … with more and more visitors doing literary tourism– so this is another offering.”
The App, which embraces bookstores from Featherston across to Martinborough through to Greytown, Carterton and Masterton let’s users hear the stories of these booksellers as they travel the length and breadth of Wairarapa, whether by car or bike.
“The booksellers in our region are as different and interesting as the books they stock,” said Featherston Booktown marketer Denver Grenell. “We invite you to visit each store on the Booklover’s Trail and hear from the unique individuals who run them.”
Biggs said that the App’s “precedent is the wine trail,” and she hopes to see similar Book Trail signs dotting roadsides in the region.
“We have received funding from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage to grow that” initial project, she noted, starting with local manu whenua stories.
The group hopes to extend the content to include the whole regional area from Wellington to Hawke’s Bay.
The App is already available, though it will be formally launched early October and in use for the International Booktown conference to be staged in Featherston next March.
LINKS:
Apple Appstore: https://apps.apple.
Google Playstore: https://play.
Web app version on your browser:https://bookloverstrail.stqry.app/?fbclid=IwAR3oWELKoea9aQVIIuE-7-3KLhFKqXGG_rTYn5lDNK5KjgaLdoN_EuLb8t8
