One of my biggest dreams is to go on Hay-on-Wye not only as an author, but also to simply shop for books. Year after year I watch the people in the biz go and come back all tousle haired and glowy. They've just heard about the greatest book ever written and me, well I am stuck waiting to find out what this unicorn of a book is called. Granted I'd likely skip the chats and go for a nice book hoke, but can't someone pay me to go anyways? I'll gather up the gossip over the dinner table. I'll gladly serve up the delicious banter for my expenses and a wee per diem allowance.... you could have me for a bargain really. Anyways enough of my bleating. I don't think the powers that be read my blog... (which may be for the best really).
There are 39 bookshops in Hay-on-Wye, many specialising in very rare editions of books. Now that the festival is on it's a perfect chance to get a look at this charming little place known as "Book Town".
The first Book Town was pioneered in 1961 by Richard Booth in Hay-on-Wye, which is a small town on the border of England and Wales. Booth's concept was to buy up property in small towns and convert the properties into bookshops.
Hay-on-Wye has long been on my list of places to visit, with a van. It's a bit tricky to get there from Paris as I'd have to take a train to London and from London change to the British Rail at Paddington Station to arrive in Herefordshire and then take a bus. Or I'll have to get over my fear of driving on the left and rent a car, one that I can pile full of books to be brought back to France via the ferry. Knowing myself as I do, and how I can buy sometimes a hundred books in one go (not ones that cost 18,000 pounds of course), I'll be taking some time this summer to practice driving on the left around the countryside of Northern Ireland where I can be fairly certain I will cause no accidents.
I'm posting a little video that's available on The Telegraph's site about looking for the most expensive book in Hay-on-Wye which turns out to be H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon which with its original dust jacket costs 18,000 pounds! The reason why books with dust jackets tend to cost more is because people tend to throw dust jackets away, so old books with dust jackets are a major attractive for serious collector's.
But my favourite little bit of this video is the bit with Peter Harries of Boz Books in Hay-on-Wye mostly because he and I have the same philosophy. Unless you have the money to throw around, you collect what means something to you.
I collect W. Somerset Maugham books for example and have a few first editions that I would (once the humans and the hound were safe) run into a burning house to save. I feel the same about my dust jacketless first edition of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't chop off my hair and sell it to get my hands on a signed first edition of W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, which is my favourite of all his works. Nor does it mean I don't have multiple editions of the same works.
A little search for what I'm looking for, without the issued slip cover is already about 2,300 pounds, but as a lover of Maugham if I had the money I'd consider it a justifiable purchase as it is not only written by my favourite author, but it's also my favourite book by any author.
Here's an image of the book I'd most like to own, although with its original slipcover, which means the price would most likely be around the 18,000 pound price as well.
Hay-on-Wye isn't the only book town. There's book towns in many countries now, including the only one I've visited Montolieu in the south of France. If you'd like to see the complete list thanks to Wikipedia you can. Thanks Wiki!
Who knows maybe I'll get to Hay-on-Wye and find my first edition of The Razor's Edge and have nothing left over for anything else. Still, I'm determined to find my way there some day in the not-so-distant future!
There are 39 bookshops in Hay-on-Wye, many specialising in very rare editions of books. Now that the festival is on it's a perfect chance to get a look at this charming little place known as "Book Town".
The first Book Town was pioneered in 1961 by Richard Booth in Hay-on-Wye, which is a small town on the border of England and Wales. Booth's concept was to buy up property in small towns and convert the properties into bookshops.
Hay-on-Wye has long been on my list of places to visit, with a van. It's a bit tricky to get there from Paris as I'd have to take a train to London and from London change to the British Rail at Paddington Station to arrive in Herefordshire and then take a bus. Or I'll have to get over my fear of driving on the left and rent a car, one that I can pile full of books to be brought back to France via the ferry. Knowing myself as I do, and how I can buy sometimes a hundred books in one go (not ones that cost 18,000 pounds of course), I'll be taking some time this summer to practice driving on the left around the countryside of Northern Ireland where I can be fairly certain I will cause no accidents.
I'm posting a little video that's available on The Telegraph's site about looking for the most expensive book in Hay-on-Wye which turns out to be H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon which with its original dust jacket costs 18,000 pounds! The reason why books with dust jackets tend to cost more is because people tend to throw dust jackets away, so old books with dust jackets are a major attractive for serious collector's.
But my favourite little bit of this video is the bit with Peter Harries of Boz Books in Hay-on-Wye mostly because he and I have the same philosophy. Unless you have the money to throw around, you collect what means something to you.
I collect W. Somerset Maugham books for example and have a few first editions that I would (once the humans and the hound were safe) run into a burning house to save. I feel the same about my dust jacketless first edition of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't chop off my hair and sell it to get my hands on a signed first edition of W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, which is my favourite of all his works. Nor does it mean I don't have multiple editions of the same works.
A little search for what I'm looking for, without the issued slip cover is already about 2,300 pounds, but as a lover of Maugham if I had the money I'd consider it a justifiable purchase as it is not only written by my favourite author, but it's also my favourite book by any author.
Here's an image of the book I'd most like to own, although with its original slipcover, which means the price would most likely be around the 18,000 pound price as well.
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| W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge printed 18 April 1944 No. 89 of 750 copies. |
Who knows maybe I'll get to Hay-on-Wye and find my first edition of The Razor's Edge and have nothing left over for anything else. Still, I'm determined to find my way there some day in the not-so-distant future!
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