When On Earth: This small market town in Wales is a booklover's paradise. Link via the Presurfer.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Great pictures!
That brings back a lot of memories, as we went to Hay most summers between 1978 and 2003. Richard Booth is the guy who publicized the "town of books" thing and owned several of the stores. From the outside you can't tell how big the Booth store is. Murder & Mayhem is, as you might expect, a mystery bookshop. I'm sure I've been in all of those stores at one time or the other - Booth, Addyman, Hay on Wye, etc. Bookends is remainders and they have a ton of stuff cheap.
Most memorable visit was probably July 29, 1981. The woman stayed at home and watched the Royal Wedding (Charles & Diana for you youngsters) while the guys went book buying in Hay.
I spent part of a day and a night there about 10 years ago. In order to get there I had to take about a four hour train trip from South Yorkshire where I was visiting to the closest community to Hay with a railline. Then took a bus that travelled a very narrow road where the bus was hitting the branches of trees. But it was worth it just to see the village and all the stores. The biggest problem of course was not buying much. Believe it or not, I did buy a baseball book that I had never seen in the bookstore in the former cinema. My biggest regret is that I didn't buy a copy of Lupoff's coffee table sized book about paperbacks, but I didn't have room for it in my suitcase when I returned to Canada. I have never come across another copy. As Jeff mentioned, Bookends featured remainders and I think that is where I first found David Peace.
3 comments:
Great pictures!
That brings back a lot of memories, as we went to Hay most summers between 1978 and 2003. Richard Booth is the guy who publicized the "town of books" thing and owned several of the stores. From the outside you can't tell how big the Booth store is. Murder & Mayhem is, as you might expect, a mystery bookshop. I'm sure I've been in all of those stores at one time or the other - Booth, Addyman, Hay on Wye, etc. Bookends is remainders and they have a ton of stuff cheap.
Most memorable visit was probably July 29, 1981. The woman stayed at home and watched the Royal Wedding (Charles & Diana for you youngsters) while the guys went book buying in Hay.
Jeff
I spent part of a day and a night there about 10 years ago. In order to get there I had to take about a four hour train trip from South Yorkshire where I was visiting to the closest community to Hay with a railline. Then took a bus that travelled a very narrow road where the bus was hitting the branches of trees. But it was worth it just to see the village and all the stores. The biggest problem of course was not buying much. Believe it or not, I did buy a baseball book that I had never seen in the bookstore in the former cinema. My biggest regret is that I didn't buy a copy of Lupoff's coffee table sized book about paperbacks, but I didn't have room for it in my suitcase when I returned to Canada. I have never come across another copy. As Jeff mentioned, Bookends featured remainders and I think that is where I first found David Peace.
The Lupoff book is great. It might be available on the 'Net.
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