Photos by Rob Varela / Star staff Ventura bookstore owner Clarey Rudd, above, has crowned Ventura an "International Book City," and city leaders have agreed. At top, a copy of the first in a series of books Ventura attorney Erle Stanley Gardner wrote in 1933 that were the basis of the TV show "Perry Mason." At left, Anne Lake of Belize browses in Bank of Books in Ventura.

Call him the Used-Book King of Ventura.

Clarey Rudd, the cheery bibliophile who grew up in his parents' bookstore and now owns three himself, is hoping to position Ventura on the world's literary map.

Rudd has taken a page from Richard Booth, the self-titled King of Hay-on-Wye, the small medieval village on the Welsh border where thousands of book lovers flock each year to mingle with authors, scan the shelves and hail the written word.

In 1961, Booth declared the sleepy village the world's first "Book Town" and sparked an economy based almost entirely on the sale of secondhand books, literary historians say.

Forty years later, Rudd has crowned Ventura an "International Book City," a declaration meant to lure the literary masses and provide a boost to local book sales.

City leaders apparently were convinced. The mayor this summer presented Rudd with a city proclamation deeming Ventura an International Book City.

The Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau and the California Visitors Center have jumped aboard the bandwagon and are ironing out details for bus and walking tours of Ventura's diverse literary offerings, said Rudd's wife, Debby.

"We have shipped (books) to 85 countries worldwide," she said. "That makes us an international bookstore, so it is appropriate to have Ventura declared an International Book City."

According to the International Organization of Book Towns, a formal book town is a small village with a large number of secondhand or antiquarian book shops and often a literary festival.

About 60 Book Towns now exist worldwide. Most are out-of-the-way European villages such as Tvedestrand, Norway, and Redu, Belgium. In America, they include Hobart, N.Y.; Stillwater, Minn.; and Archer City, Texas. Ventura would join Nevada City as the only ones in California.

"It's kind of surprising, but we do have a lot of used bookstores compared with other towns," said Kristin Kielsmeier, owner of the Book Rack store in midtown Ventura for 21 years.

Julie Morneau was vacationing in Ventura recently from Ireland. She spent nearly an hour browsing the shelves at the Calico Cat Bookshop on Main Street. "This — absolutely — is a book-friendly city," she said. "I come here for the bookstores."

Rudd insists the designation is justified. The city is home to more independent bookstores than any other city in Ventura County; two publishing houses; and Perry Mason, the famous fictional lawyer created in the 1930s by writer Erle Stanley Gardner, who lived and worked here. Ventura's bookstores collectively manage an inventory of more than 2 million books: rare books, erotic books, comic books, children's books, all types of Bibles and cookbooks, among others.

"This will help recognize the uniqueness and diversity of the many different types of bookstores Ventura has," said Rudd, owner of Bank of Books, Abednego Book Shoppe and the Cookbook Store. "Too many people overlook all the great offerings we have in the community. It's a healthy and positive thing for a city to recognize what's here."