BOOK GALORE

Yesterday I went to Hay-on-Wye - you may have heard of it as it is the second-hand book capital of the world. The whole town is given over to the sale of books. It was established like that in 1962 by Richard Booth who I think now owns the Castle and has declared himself the King of Hay-on-Wye. There are 22 dedicated book shops each one with tens of thosands of book usually over 3 or 4 floors so that it really is a book-lovers delight. It is set within some beautiful Welsh coutryside so I had a lovely 2 hour drive there through some lovely scenery. The book shops cater to just about every subject and taste. I spent the day mainly just browsing among the cheap paperbacks and giving lustful galnces at the rare first editions and aniquarian books. They say that books really are a great investment which pleases me no end as I have managed to collect 32 collectable books of my own over the last 50 years. They give me a lot of joy and I am not likely to sell them or realise a profit on them! I must say I marvelled at the amount of books printed in the English language many of them on some really erudite subjects but I also recalled TS Eliot's words "Where is the Wisdom we have lost in knowledge?" In these days of the information highway though it doesn't seem as if books have lost their appeal, They certainly haven't for me! There is nothing like holding a good qaulity book in my hands. Just a few days ago before I went by chance I was looking at a book on the poems of RS Thomas and noticed that I purchased it in the "Poetry bookshop" at Hay in August 2001 whcih was the last time I was there. It was when our whole family over 4 generations gathered together and rented an old farmhouse in Wales for a holiday together - happy memories! This time I also bought a book from the same shop - A collection of some poems by Seamus Heany. I also purchased a copy of Red Pine's translation of The Platform Sutra which is one of the three great Buddhist Sutras. I had Red Pine's translation of the other two so this was a welcome addition. Both books were reasonably priced so I manged to spent less than £20.