Apparently, Oxford, Miss., has figured out how to make money from this whole book thing (it’s nice to see someone has), as this article reports that literary tourism has skyrocketed there in the past two years.

In other words, people may be reading less, but people who love to read — or at least, love to say they do — are traveling more. As a result, the statue of William Faulkner is getting lots of infelicitous attentions (aka mucho groping):

[The tourist] perched gingerly next to the statue and snatched a magenta camera from her Aqua Man backpack. Her boyfriend photographed her snuggling with the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner.

The Mississippi novelist would cringe if he were flesh. The hard-drinking, often prickly Faulkner hated the casual touch. His messy, spectacular novels are as thorny as he was.

A couple years ago, Oxford and Asheville were both included in a Book Magazine piece on “10 Great Literary Trips” in America.

A visit to the website of Square Books, the illustrious Oxford bookstore, shows that it’ll be turning 25 next week. Ellen Douglas, Larry Brown and John Grisham will be giving a reading in honor of the anniversary. I imagine that Grisham has waived the customary $75,000 speaking fee to something more reasonable. Like $50,000.