While I should be writing

“So, you’re going to Richard Booth’s Bookshop, Hay on Wye?” the taxi driver asked when she picked me up outside of Bookish. “I have to tell you, finding a specific bookshop in Hay on Wye can be tricky. Finding a bookshop on the other hand is easy.”

I soon discovered that she was right. In the end, she just dropped me off at my hotel, where I checked in and then immediately went out again. I was going to be in Hay on Wye for two nights, so I was saving my real visit to Richard Booth’s Bookshop for tomorrow, but couldn’t resist a sort of preview.

So I walked out, followed the direction the woman at my hotel gave me, and then I just… halted.

They were everywhere. Poetry bookshops, Crime bookshops, general bookshops, small passages leading towards a bookshop, shops buying books. “Good God”, I thought, “how many bookshops can one town really need?”

And then I had a sort of existential crisis at the thought of me (me!) thinking there might be too many bookshops in a town.

But with so many second hand bookshops, did anyone even have books at home? Did the locals read?

“Well, to be honest, I think it’s mainly the tourists that buys the book”, the lady behind the counter at one of them said.
“And … and have there always been this many bookshops?”
“Many! There used to be many more of them, dear. We’re in decline. I think, right now, there’s only about twenty, perhaps. Maybe thirty. There used to be as many as forty. In the nineties, that was the golden age for bookshops. But I guess it’s the same everywhere?”
Err, yes,

I have to admit that I did not know about Richard Booth and book cities and the story behind Hay on Wye. But the next day, I decided to find out.

The only thing small about Bookish on 23 High Street in Crickhowell is its size. I’ve been told that author Adele and illustrator Lizzie, both responsible for the Bookish bestseller The Hedgerow Handbook. I’ve also been promised tea and welshcakes. If I’ve thought about it at all, I’ve probably envisioned something like a traditional book signing, but there’s no sign of it when I enter the store. And when I look around – the gift cards, the little table with childrens book, the shelves lining the walls, and the counter in the corner furthest away – I begin to wonder whether or not anyone could fit a traditional book signing in here. Or, for that matter, tea.

In everything else, however, Bookish is great – in the range of books, for example, or the number of book clubs,and definitely in energy and ambition.

The woman behind the counter is not Emma, the owner, who I’m there to meet. “Hi, you must be Katarina. I recognized you because of the suitcase” – I’m already struggling to lugg it around without accidently knocking something down – “Emma isn’t here at the moment. She’s… out. Somewhere. She’s always running about. Force of nature. I’m Adele. Tea? Let me just clear some books away here by the table, there you go, and a nice cup of tea.”
I got the Go away, I’m writing-cup, but I like to point out here that it was she who decided on it.I can be quite polite.
“Let me just pop out next door and get us some welshcakes.”
And then she was off, leaving me alone in a shop full of books. Big mistake. Huge. But my self control did not let me down, I did not steal a single one.

And then a few minutes later, the shop was full: Emma turned up, with illustrator Lizzie, who also brought along some of her wonderful print. “We’re having an art walk”, Emma explained, “so the shop gives up their windows to showcast art.”

This was after the buy locally-week that were going on right now.

With four people having tea and welshcakes and looking at prints, the shop was almost full. “I would like to have more space”, Emma explained later. “But the problem is – there isn’t really any large shops in Crickhowell.”

This, of course, does not stop Emma. If you cannot squeeze more people into the bookshop, you have to take the bookshop out to the people.

“We’ve got a James Patterson-grant and used crowdfunding, and we’re almost there now.”

She’s planning a Book bus (!).

After tea, she took me out to lunch. “We have nine reading groups at the moment. I think I told Louise they were seven, but then I counted them and realize we have nine. It would be so great if you could come back for the Independent Bookseller Week, I would like to do something with the local library. They’re struggling a bit at the moment.”
I would of course love to come back. Louise is responsible for my schedule, but…
“Great. I’ll just email her and tell her that I took you out to lunch and that we are now great friends and that you would love to come back.”

Which is definitely true. I only hope the Book bus will be ready by then, but otherwise I’ll just have to come back again. And again and again and again.

I’m new on Twitter, and to be honest, I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. I keep struggling with the word limitations. I need 400 pages to tell a simple story, so the chances of me every managing to keep it short are very slim. But one of the things I do like about it is follow others, so one of the first things I did when I signed up was to start follow Neil Gaiman.

By this point in my journey I’ve asked some twenty or thirty booksellers to recommend just one book, and they’ve all considered it quite a challenge. Probably as challenging as it has been for me to stick to the one book. Until the Neil Gaiman-fan at Rossiter Books. So I tweeted about the easy choice and added Neil Gaiman himself, who retweeted it. Perhaps not surpicingly, quite a few of his followers agreed with the easy choice.

"Just one book? That's easy: anything by @neilhimself Perhaps one illustrated by @chrisriddell50" – @RossiterBooks pic.twitter.com/gljnCBFA5U

— Katarina Bivald (@katarinabivald) March 4, 2015

  So when I visited the second Rossiter Books the day after, on 5 Church Street, Monmouth, and explained what I was doing, I was greeted with: “Ah, yes, you’re the Neil Gaiman-tweet, aren’t you?”

His recommendation was another illustration of the power of booksellers: “I have this favourite, but I keep recommending it so it’s often out of stock. Yes, it is unfortunately. The Art of Fielding.”
Oh, I’ve read that one. It’s amazing.
“Well, this one is almost as good: It’s like a movie by the Coen Brothers, but with more humour.”

And then I couldn’t resist Welsch author Jonathan Edwards – My Family and Other Superheroes.”

I think Louise was afraid that local buses were beyond my skill, so for Wales, she had pre-booked taxis to pick me up at regular intervalls for the next bookshop. So in due time I was collected by Abbey taxi to take me to The Corn Exchange, 7 The High Street, Ross-on-Why, Herefordshire.

The taxi driver very kindly pointed out places of local history, all the best fishing spots, and every snowdrop we passed, until we reached Rossiter Books in Ross-on-Wye.

“Hello, my name is Katarina Bivald”, I said, and then I got to vary my prepared speech by saying: “I have a delivery for you.”
“Brilliant. You’ve made a customer very happy.”
Always happy to help a fellow desperate booknerd.

As always, I told him about my trip and my one-book-rule, and asked him to recommend anyting he himself had loved. “I get to choose?” he said.
“Anything at all”, I said.
“Well, that’s easy. Anything by Neil Gaiman.” He took me to the fiction shelves and pointed to the three paperback novels of Gaiman they had in store.
“I’ve read American Gods”, I said (brilliant book).
“Hm. If you’ve read his adult fiction, maybe one of his illustrated book? Perhaps this one, with illustrations by Chris Riddell.”

Excellent choice, I think.

On Wednesday, March 4, I took a taxi from Bristol across the bridge into Wales. The taxi driver enthused over Bristol the entire way, and rightly so.

“You know Banksy, right?”
I did, yes.
“Well, he’s from around here of course, and the guy that tought him everything. I drive him all the time, but he’s just like a regular person, you know? That what Bristol does. We’re not stuck up or anything. And lots of great music. I was in Vegas with my best friends for a stag night, and they had all these bands, with tickets costing an arm and a leg, and I just thought: But I’ve already seen them, in Bristol? And you could just walk down the street and go into all these different clubs, for free, and hear som great music. But Vegas was nice too. Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t party for four straight days, but my friend, the one who was getting married, he definitely tried to. The rest of us took it a it easier. We’re older now, you know? Wives and kids. Couldn’t do it. And then we all got some sort of food poisoning or something on the way home and came home completely worn out. Didn’t get much sympathy from me wife, though. You’ve been away from the kids having fun, and then you come home and expects to be able to rest? She got a point, too. So what are you doing in Chepstow?”
Oh, visiting the bookshop, of course.

The Chepstow is located on St. Mary Street, in Chepstow, Monmouthshire. Their recommendation: Any Human Heart, by William Boyd. And then we hung around, talking about my epic trip and my book, until Matt said: “Are you by any chance visiting Rossiter Books afterwards?”
I was indeed.
“Then perhaps… I wonder, could you do me a favour and deliver this book to them? Apparently it’s the last copy in the area, and a customer of theirs needed it urgently. I was going to head down to the post office, but if you’re going there…?”

Naturally I was only too happy to oblige, but I wondered if it was really wise to entrust a book to a booknerd. Do not steal the book, do not steal the book kept going through my head.

I didn’t even peak inside the bag, so now I don’t know which book it was that I was strong enough not to steal. I thought it was best not to tempt myself.