I’ve wanted to visit Hay-on-Wye, the tiny Welsh town (I now know there are no other kinds) filled with antiquarian and used book shops, ever since reading Sixpence House by Paul Collins. The book tells of Collins’ attempt to relocate from San Francisco to quirky, book-laden Hay-on-Wye. His impressions of the charming town and its colorful booksellers sketched a landscape that was, for me, a Mecca.
This town of 1,900 residents is a bibliophile’s dream: it has over 40 bookshops, mostly second-hand. There is one that sells new releases, but come on – you can get those anywhere! Second-hand shops are where you can unearth treasures and discover the works that have shaped a region.
The town is just as you might expect: tight, sloping lanes lined with mismatched, ancient buildings filled with local retailers.
If book browsing is not your passion, there’s plenty else to do. Although many of the shops are stacked floor-to-ceiling with used books, there are also many clothing, art, antique, craft and homeware shops. There’s a sporting goods store, an array of restaurants and pubs, a Globe theatre and grocers.
Hay has been the “Town of Books” since the 1960’s when Richard Booth, then a recent Oxford grad, moved to town, bought the old fire station and turned it into a bookshop filled with cast-off libraries from country houses, institutions and whoever else was looking to rid himself of books. He bought whole libraries from all over the world and he sold to universities, private collectors and regular joes. Booth opened what was then the world’s largest bookstore in the old cinema. Then he opened two more shops, Booth Books and Hay Castle Books. His success attracted other booksellers and the rest is, of course, history.
Hay, Wales, book, Collins, Sixpence House, Town of Books, Richard Booth
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