Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BROWSING FOR BOOKS IN HAY
There are 26 secondhand and antiquarian bookshops in Hay, with hundreds of thousands of tomes stacked floor to
ceiling across town - 500,000 in Booth's alone. Each shop is profiled on a free map, available from the tourist of-
fice and from venues around town. However, Hay's shopping potential doesn't stop with books. There are also
excellent stores selling antiques, craft, art and historic maps. Lonely Planet has reviewed its top picks.
Stocks books on all sorts of subjects, has a sitting room upstairs and a sci-fi room.
the best; has a sizeable Anglo-Welsh literature section and a Wales travel section. There's also a great little cafe,
and regular film screenings.
primary domain these days, with a suitably eclectic stock and an honesty bookshop (50p per book) in the castle
grounds.
Castle St) Huge collection of books about filmmaking and cinema, in a converted cinema.
Mostly Maps
OFFLINE MAP
01497-820539;
www.mostlymaps.com
;
2 Castle St) Exquis-
ite antiquarian maps, many hand-coloured.
Murder & Mayhem
OFFLINE MAP
01497-821613; 5 Lion St) Filled to the brim with de-
tective fiction, true crime and horror.
Rose's Books
OFFLINE MAP
01497-820013;
www.rosesbooks.com
;
14 Broad St) Rare
children's and illustrated books.
Tom's Record Shop
OFFLINE MAP
01497-821590; 13 Castle St) Some books alongside
new and secondhand records and CDs.
Festivals & Events
Hay Festival
( 01497-822629;
www.hayfestival.com
; May)
The 10-day Hay Festival in late May has become
Britain's leading festival of literature and the arts - a kind of bookworms' Glastonbury or,
according to a former American president, 'the Woodstock of the mind'. Like those le-
gendary music festivals, it pulls more than its fair share of the leading exponents of its
genre.
As well as Bill Clinton, past speakers have included famous writers (Ian McEwan,
Zadie Smith, Stephen Fry, Bill Bryson), priests (Rowan Williams, Desmond Tutu) and
LITERARY
