This weekend, I joined Niall and Graham on arguably the ultimate in bookish roadtrips: to a certain small town just over the Welsh border, Hay-on-Wye.
For anyone who hasn't heard of it, Hay is primarily famous for being a bibliophile's paradise. It plays host to no less than thirty-eight bookshops - particularly impressive given how tiny the place is (the population stands at about 1500 people...). These shops range from the charmingly tiny to the utterly cavernous (like the brilliant Cinema Bookshop), and the overwhelming focus is on second-hand, antiquarian and remaindered books. There's a sizeable literary festival held there every year in May/June. And it's also, splendidly, now twinned with Timbuktu (allegedly because of the importance of writing to Timbuktu's history and culture, but I suspect mostly because no-one could resist the pun).
There really are bookshops everywhere - including one in the castle:
That Hay is located amid some beautiful countryside is really just the icing on the cake. We can recommend Offa's Dyke walk (along the river), which has an abundance of enormous trees that are just perfect for sitting under to while away a few hours with your purchases. Here's the river:
Inevitably, my bookpile (which would have been about three times bigger, except that a) I ran out of money, and b) I'm ridiculously fussy about the condition of books I buy):
(From the top...)
- Joanna Russ, The Adventures of Alyx (this one came from a shop - Richard Booth's, I think? - that segregated its science fiction section into 'SF' and 'Lady Authors'; Russ wasn't with the ladies, however... make of that what you will ;-))
- Josephine Saxton, Queen of the States
- Steph Swainston, No Present Like Time (sequel to this)
- Simon Ings, The Weight of Numbers
- Gregory Normington, Arts and Wonders
- Alessandro Baricco, Without Blood (from the author of Silk, which I loved)
- Harriette Wilson's Memoirs: The Greatest Courtesan of Her Age, ed. Lesley Blanch
- Reynold Nicholson, The Mystics of Islam (very old and v outdated book on the Sufis, but great fun nonetheless)
- Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary
- Tim Mackintosh-Smith, The Hall of a Thousand Columns (part 2 of his Ibn Battuta journeys)
- Stella Duffy, Calendar Girl
- Michel Faber, Some Rain Must Fall
- Alan Cameron, Porphyrius the Charioteer
- Usama b. Munqidh, An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Age of the Crusades, tr. P.K. Hitti
- Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (purchase of the weekend - a bargain and in perfect condition)
And the total haul:
I'll link to the rest of my photos later (mostly of trees); Niall has more here.
~~Nic