Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Hay-on-Wye: A town of books or festivals?



Richard Booth's Bookshop 
Richard Booth's Bookshop is the grandest in Hay

The annual festival of literature and the arts is taking place in Hay-on-Wye this week, but the event's success masks a struggle for survival among the second-hand bookshops that first made the town famous.
Several shops have closed in recent years, with the competition from online retailers and e-books forcing the remaining businesses to adapt in order to survive.
For some it has meant diversifying their stock, for others it has involved embracing the internet to turn a profit.

Richard Booth's Bookshop is the grandest and best-known of the bookshops that pepper the few small streets branching off from the town clock.

But even this icon of well-thumbed novels and nearly-new autobiographies has had to introduce food and films to keep a healthy base of customers.
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