LittLetoWn of Wonder

LittLe toWn of Wonder Tori Warkentin

On the border of Wales and England, I fell in love with a little town called Hay-on-Wye. The historic town is not just beautiful in its architecture and friendly faces, but in its divine insistence to facilitate literature and knowledge to its visitors.

Hay-on-Wye is a market town located on the River Wye. In 1960, a man by the name of Richard Booth opened the first book store in the center of the sprawling streets of the town in an old firehouse. Following Booth’s influence, many other bookshops opened, and the town quickly became known for its expanse of literature, cramming thousands of books onto every available surface.

While visiting the Welsh town, I quickly learned that no expanse of time would ever be enough to venture the packed hallways of each store. I spent hours outside the castle ruins perusing the open-aired shelves, picking up a well-loved book, and leaving a few pounds in the honesty payment box. I sat on the floor of a murder mystery shop, pulling out faded paperbacks from little nooks and crannies. At a shop filled with poetry, I peered over the words of Wordsworth and Keats. Some of the stores held vintage novels while others were considerably new, but all held treasures.

A place with so much of the same thing may be seen as redundant to some, but to other readers and me, it was a place to explore and broaden our worldviews. A place where in one store, you were reading the works of William Shakespeare and in another, venturing into the world of Huckleberry Finn. Although the borders of this small town may look narrow at first glance, Hay-on-Wye took me and many others on a journey of discovery. Like the brilliant author, Jhumpa Lahiri says, “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” Creative Essay

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