Hay-on-Wye Bookstores and Book Festival

The Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye has become famous for its secondhand and antiquarian bookstores. Currently, there are about thirty major bookshops in that small town. Some of the bookstores are listed here.

The town is also home to the well-known Hay Festival. Hay is, in Bill Clinton's phrase, "the Woodstock of the mind." The festival runs from May 22 to June 1 this year. The full program is available here.

Here's a description of the festival: "Hay gathers people together to think about the world as it is and to imagine how it might be. It's a big conversation about discovery and intellectual adventure. We share stories and ideas with great international writers and thinkers, film-makers, historians and novelists, philosophers, environmentalists, poets and scientists. And at night we like to party with the greatest comedians and musicians. It's a bunch of mates hanging out in a field with time to think, finding the inspiration to re-imagine the world. Let’s celebrate the power of language and the pleasure of debate."