CBS Sunday Morning took what it called a "diversion" to look at "a town books put on the map": Hobart, N.Y., where in one block there are seven bookstores. Set in the northern Catskills, Hobart Book Village's inspiration was Hay-on-Wye, the famous Welsh book town. The piece notes the variety of store specialties--New York history, cooking, mysteries, travel, antiquarian, etc.--and the founding of events like the Hobart Festival of Women Writers.
Among the interviewees is Don Dales, who in the early 2000s began buying buildings in downtown Hobart and establishing bookstores. The area is a place where "writers and readers now make pilgrimages," in part "for what the town represents."