The Magic of Hay-on-Wye and the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival.

If you like books and you haven’t visited Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh-English borders and you get the chance to do so, then don’t pass it up.

Let me give you a couple of stats:

The permanent population of Hay-on-Wye is around 1,500.

The number of bookshops in Hay-on-Wye is around 23!!

That’s a bookshop for around 65 of its residents, now that is something a little unusual to say the least, and contributes to it being the bookshop capital of Britain.

And that longstanding interest in books helped to spawn the Hay-on-Wye Literary festival which has grown exponentially and is now one of the leading bookfests in the entire world, gaining Hay the tag of the Glastonbury festival for books.

And as if to reiterate the town’s worldwide fame, here follows a video from Chinese TV all about Hay and its booksellers.

The Festival usually takes place at the end of May and if you are interested in visiting, that is maybe a good time to go, but make sure you pack a raincoat, and book your accommodation early.

Have fun,

David.

and how about this for a secondhand bookshop - this one's in Hay too of course, and how much time could you spend in here?

ttfn,

David