Would you go on a bookish vacation?

Elizabeth just got back from a trip that included a day in the Original Book Town, Hay-on-Wye in Wales in the UK. It was adorable and she went to more bookstores than you can shake a stick at. It also made her wonder what other bookish vacations she could go on. When we started to dig into this idea for this episode, we found out that the answer is: a lot! 

Join us in daydreaming about bookish trips to literary festivals, literary museums, bookish hotels, famous libraries, a friends reading retreat, and more!

-----------------------
Books we're reading in this episode:  

• Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb (Rain Wild Chronicles #1)
• Voyage of the Basilisk–A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan (The Memoirs of Lady Trent #3)
• 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
• The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman (Thursday Murder Club #3)

 ----------------------- 

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay-on-Wye
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_town 
• https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/apr/26/10-worlds-best-book-towns-france-spain-south-korea-usa 
• https://www.hayfestival.com/hay-on-wye/home
• https://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/tourism/bookshops 
• https://themelodramaticbookworm.com/2023/07/18/bookish-places-on-my-travel-bucket-list/ 
• https://www.buenosairesfreewalks.com/what-to-see/el-ateneo-bookstore/ 
• https://www.cntraveler.com/story/book-fairs-to-travel-for 
• https://bookriot.com/bookish-cities/ 
• https://libraryhotel.com/en/ 
• https://bookandbedtokyo.com/en/ 
• https://www.hotelsylvia.com/ 
• https://theeverygirl.com/reading-retreat-trip-idea/ 

Transcript

[All Books Aloud intro and theme music]

Elizabeth: Martha. It's been a while.

Martha: Hi, Liz. Yes, it has. How have you been?

Elizabeth: I'm good. I just got back from a trip that included a couple days of vacation in a book town. Which is both why it's been a while since our last episode, and the inspiration for our topic today. But before we get into that, tell me what you're reading.

Martha: I am so excited about what I'm reading. To be honest with you, ever since I read [00:01:00] Eragon, I had a little bit of a book hang over after I finished that series. And , I probably should have done a pallet cleanser and , done something totally different 

but I didn't, I was trying to find something that's similar to continue the same feeling, so I got into a really big dragon. Rabbit hole. , first I tried to read another Brandon Sanderson series 'cause I'm like, okay, this fantasy's really doing it for me. , I'm gonna dig into another really thick fantasy series.

So I tried another Brandon Sanderson, and it's funny because I put it on my story graph and then I was listening to it and then like two hours later I did not finish. And I marked it off on my story graph. And my friend Rebecca, texted me and was like, oh my gosh, you're cracking me up on your story graph, how you started the way of Kings.

And then immediately did not finish. And so luckily she was like, okay, you need to try Robin [00:02:00] Hobb. . I think you'll love it. You need to try. Robin Hobb, the Dragon Keeper is the first book in the Rain Wild Chronicles. So I started reading that. I got it from the library, and immediately was hooked. And it's a high fantasy, 

it's a legit fantasy. 'cause I have this thing where I'm like, oh, if I only like Romantasy, maybe I'm not a real fantasy reader or something. 

Elizabeth: We have to unpack that at some point, but keep going.

Martha: well this is the whole thing with Brandon Sanderson. I'm like, everyone loves Brandon Sanderson, who loves fantasy. Why can't I get into it? , I'm not a true fantasy lover or something, which is ridiculous.

I know Liz is hitting herself in the head. Yes, that's a whole thing. But what I'm getting at is it's not true. It's just different kinds of fantasy. And Robin Hobbs writing is so good. It just. Captured me right away in the way that Brandon Sanderson just doesn't, I don't know, just the way he describes things versus the way Robin Hobb does is different.

And I really like her style of [00:03:00] writing. The Rain Wild Chronicles is multiple POV. There's a lot going on, a lot of world building, but it's just not boring. It's very descriptive, very entertaining. It's about people who are taking care of these dragons who are born deformed because their race is declining and they were born in these toxic waters and it's a whole thing.

And so every character has a tragic kind of backstory. I don't know, maybe I should just read the description 'cause I'm not doing a very good job

Elizabeth: No, you are. I think it sounds amazing.

Martha: Yeah, it's just, it's really interesting. So I'm about half through and so far I love it and I'll probably keep reading the series. And then I'm listening to another Dragon themed book, which is totally different.

I'm on the third book of the Memoirs of Lady Trent, which is a fictionalized memoir [00:04:00] by, it's not really Victorian 'cause it's not in our world, but a Victorian style lady who is a dragon naturalist. She's going to these foreign lands, a little bit of anthropology, a little bit of, engaging with different cultures, learning about their cultures, war games, and then observing dragons and coming to conclusions about their taxonomy and things like that.

And there's always a little bit of a mystery element too, like what's going on politically with these cultures. And they kind of get wrapped up In the politics as foreigners who are coming to this new land. So it's really interesting. And she writes it like a English lady.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that does sound really interesting. At first when you said you were reading or listening to another fantasy, I was like, oh man, I can't do that. 'cause I a couple of times have accidentally started listening to the same type of book that I'm [00:05:00] reading on paper, like another cozy mystery. Or if I'm reading a historical fiction or a historical romance and I start listening to a historical fiction on audio, I can't, for whatever reason, , I can't do that.

I can't keep 'em straight. But now that you've described the second book, it actually, I get it. It's different enough that you're not gonna confuse the two stories or

anything like that. 

Martha: Yeah, 

Elizabeth: It sounds really cool. I kind of wanna listen to it because , I'm not huge into fantasy and that sounds like it might be a bridge between fantasy and historical fiction that I might like.

Martha: Yeah, I think you actually really would like it. There's good character development. It's very interesting 'cause it's about her life and , she is writing as Lady Trent, but in the first few books she's Mrs. Cam Hearst. So you're like, how, does she become Lady Trent? And there's all these little crumbs and you just wanna keep hearing about her life.

So it's really good.

Elizabeth: That's interesting. It's a totally different genre and I don't know if the fact that you like this means that you [00:06:00] would like this book I'm about to talk about, but it reminds me of the Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. Have you ever encountered that

Martha: I've heard of it. I have it 'cause I bought it at the thrift store. I just haven't read it yet.

Elizabeth: It's, literary fiction. It's totally different, but , it's basically the story of a woman's entire life . That's something , that 19th century writers did. It's very Victorian, like a Jane Eyy, the story from when she was a kid until she is an adult.

Although signature of all things is literally until the end of her life. , but you don't get that very often these days. And anyway, she's a naturalist and she is a scientist and she goes all over the world and encounters new cultures , , it sounded similar to the way that you just described that, even though it's a different genre.

Martha: Yeah. Very similar. I'll have to bump it up.

The TBR.

Elizabeth: Well, thank goodness for booksellers. Librarians who recommend books to their friends and clients and patrons

Martha: I know. Thank goodness for story graph and people following me on there so they can

Elizabeth: [00:07:00] Right.

Martha: catch me and yeah, set me straight.

Elizabeth: , I am proud of you for, , DN Fing it right away though, I will say, you know this in the way that you were talking about it, but , it's not about, quality. Brandon Sanderson I'm sure is great. Lots of people love him. It's just some writers speak to you and some don't the writing style.

It could be whatever, the sensibility of the person because they're a different gender. It doesn't matter really. It doesn't mean anything if you don't like a one writer or another.

Martha: Yeah, totally. It's a good reminder. 

So that's what I am reading. What are you reading?

Elizabeth: I'm listening to the third book in the Thursday Murder club series that I talked to you about last time called The Bullet That Missed is the third book. And , I am still loving that.

Martha: Oh, good.

Elizabeth: I feel like I don't love it quite as much as I loved the second one, but I [00:08:00] am almost done with it. So I'm still enjoying it enough to go through the series.

There's only one more, the fourth one is the last one I think. Although actually now that I'm thinking about it, he just announced a new book and I think it might be actually a continuation of the Thursday murder club series. , but I'm still really liking that. And then my print book, which I actually just finished last night, and,

I need to have some therapy about. The book is 84 Char Charring Cross Road by Helene Hanff. And if you haven't read that book and want to maybe just skip ahead like two minutes because I need some therapy about the ending of the book from you, Martha, because it just completely destroyed me I was blubbering, I was crying so hard because part of it is that it was really abrupt.

 The letters are going along, these really cute letters where Helene is building this relationship [00:09:00] with Frank, the bookseller. And , I think you've talked about this book before, so I'm not going into the details, but it's an epistolary novel of a writer. The actual, it's a true story, the writer, Helene and these letters over the course of 20 years that she wrote back and forth with this bookseller in London who would send her books because she wasn't happy with the quality of the books that she could get in New York City at the time. It starts post World War ii,

, and goes into the sixties. And the letters are going along, they're really cute. You see some signs of people getting older, some people, , losing touch with the shop or whatever. But then all of a sudden it skips three years and then Frank dies and then Helene never goes to London to see the shop, which is the whole trajectory of it was like she is saving up to go to London because she wants to see the shop and meet her friends and then she has to get dental work and so it doesn't happen.

And then she's saving up again and then she has to move into a new apartment 'cause she gets evicted and it doesn't happen. And obviously that's real life, that's the level of [00:10:00] disappointment that we actually deal with as humans. But because it was a book, I think that somewhere inside my lizard brain, I was expecting that she eventually would get to go to London and meet Frank, and then she just doesn't,

Martha: I know, I know. It's so sad, but I

Elizabeth: never knows.

Martha: I know, but I could see how her friend dying would totally take the wind out of her sails to go at all. 

Elizabeth: . I wouldn't have expected her to go after he died, but those two things, he dies and then it is like, oh, obviously she never went. And it was just a double whammy and I was like, oh my God, this is soul crushing.

Martha: And also a good reminder that life is short and take the

trip. Yeah.

Elizabeth: right. And you never know, it wasn't from old age, it was from an acute situation that happened. ,

Martha: Yeah. Which is why there, there was no warning. It was just one day she wrote a letter like, where's Frank? And got the news back.

[00:11:00] Yeah, I know.

Elizabeth: Oh God. It's terrible. Okay. That can be the end of the spoiler, so , if you're looking for that spot to join us again, it is a very good book though. I loved it. It's so short and it's just amazing how quickly just through reading these letters back and forth, you're drawn into this world that they're both inhabiting.

And it was so interesting reading the differences between post-war New York City versus post-war London, which was still going through really intense rationing and yeah it is a little slice of life, basically, and it draws you in so much that obviously it can be hard to remember that it is a true

Martha: yeah,

Elizabeth: But yeah, it's just amazing how such a short book through letters can be so engrossing. But it was, and I absolutely

Martha: yeah. That's the cool thing about letter writing. It's [00:12:00] such a good slice of a moment in time. Such a good historical. Artifact and , it's kind of sad 'cause we won't have that

Elizabeth: I know.

Martha: in the same way because we don't write letters. , I suppose that people in the future could uncover emails and things like that, or text messages, but it's just different, so

Elizabeth: yeah. Well, and I was gonna say, who even writes emails anymore? Long emails to friends and family, I hardly ever do anymore. 

Martha: no, 

Elizabeth: used to when email was new. Yeah, now it's mostly texts and those don't give you the same richness of the world, you know?

Martha: no. 'cause we just see people on social media, I guess is the way that we keep up. It's so different

Elizabeth: yeah.

Martha: and that's such a weird, curated version of life that you're not getting, like in 84 Charing Crossroad, they're talking about. The rations and what they're eating and all this detail about their quality of [00:13:00] life and what they're experiencing.

And you don't get that on social media, 

so it's kind of a shame. But thus, time and civilization marches on, I suppose.

Elizabeth: It's the way of the world. I also, maybe something else that, if you wanna read the book, you won't wanna listen to, but , as soon as I finished reading the book, I was like, probably the bookstore doesn't exist in London still, but maybe it's still a bookstore or maybe there's, a little, I don't know what I thought, but London is, England overall is pretty good about preserving its history, 

and so I was like surely. And then I looked it up, do you know what it is? Did you look it up? It's a fucking McDonald's. 

Martha: Oh my God, 

Elizabeth: It was such a gut punch and it was as, I was still streaming tears

 I was like, maybe I could go there. It's a pilgrimage because of how much I love this book. And it's a

Martha: to McDonald's. 

Elizabeth: there is a little plaque outside of the McDonald's on the side of the building that [00:14:00] acknowledges that it was the bookstore, but oh God. Heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking. But that is related to our topic, which is why I brought it up, because the inspiration for this episode is the idea of a bookish vacation, that idea of , oh, maybe the next time in I'm in England, I'll travel to the site of this bookstore, which I definitely won't now because it's horrifying reminder of, progress and change in the world that we live in.

But it's still a good idea, a bookish vacation. , and so that's what we're talking about today because I went, , recently to the uk and I did a little mini bookish vacation.

Martha: Yeah. Tell us about it. Where'd you go?

Elizabeth: So I go to the UK every year for, , a library conference that I now am actually on , the organizing committee of. And so I used to be able to get away with a little bit more touristy time when I was just presenting or attending.

, but I still try [00:15:00] to do something either the weekend before or the weekend after. That's a little bit touristy because I don't wanna waste a trip to the UK even though I've gone so many times at this point. , so this time the conference was in Cardiff in Wales, which is a cool city in its own right.

And I did get to spend some time going around Cardiff and it was awesome. But I also snuck in a quick trip the weekend before the conference to Hay-on-Wye, which is, self-described. Well. I don't know if this is just self-described, it has a sign , at the, border of the town that says it's the world's first book town.

So I said that self-described because I couldn't imagine that there's actually an official designation of the world's first book town. But as I was doing research for this episode, I found out that book Town is an official designation and there's an international organization of book towns that defines what a book town is and, has a register of book towns in the world.

, so a book town is a [00:16:00] small rural town or village in which secondhand and antiquarian bookshops are concentrated. , 

Martha: very cool.

Elizabeth: Yes, it was very cool and I went there intentionally, , but I. More research into it as I was planning to go and realize that it was even cooler than I had realized before. So Hay-on-Wye is definitely a book town. It has 26 bookshops in the town according to a little tourist map that I pick up while I was there.

The number of bookshops, if you Google it varies and I assume that's just because some of them go out of business or new ones open. But as of, a couple of weeks ago when I was there, it was 26, , but only about 1600 people live there, according to the last count in 2021, which was a few years ago.

So maybe it's a little bit more now, but yeah, under 2000 people. So it's 26 bookshops is definitely a concentrated area of bookshops.

Martha: they all work at the bookshops? They must.

Elizabeth: A good number , of people, I'm sure. [00:17:00] Yeah. Who knows? I don't know if the people who own the bookshops actually live in the town. There's no information about that. 

Martha: , does every shop have their own niche or are they all similar? It's hard to imagine 26 bookshops and how they differ.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that is a good question. , the answer is kind of both. So I wanna talk about some of the bookstores. I didn't go to all 26 'cause as it turns out, even for someone like me, there is such a thing as too many bookstores in one day.

 But I did go to quite a few.

, and so some of them do have a specific niche, but a lot of them are general bookstores and, you know, they all have their own different character that they use as their selling point, but. , it's really like the town is the selling point. The idea that it's a book town and you go there knowing that there's a ton of bookstores.

And so you go there with the intention of going to all these different bookstores, I also will add in the show notes. I'm not gonna go into this 'cause I haven't , been to any of these places, but [00:18:00] there's an article in The Guardian that is kind of old, so take it with a grain of salt, but about the 10 best book towns all over the world, according to them.

And I wanna go to every single one of them now. , they're all over the place. These book towns officially that are registered with the international organization of book towns. so that's obviously one type of bookish vacation. We'll talk about some other types as we go on.

But yeah,

Hay-on-Wye , is definitely a book town. It has , lots of bookshops. The reason that I knew it before. This trip is mainly because it hosts an annual literary festival called the Hay Festival that is world famous. It brings in all sorts of really well-known authors and speakers and it's a festival, so you can imagine it just has a ton of different things going on.

Martha: ,

Yeah, . It sounds so cool. Just looking at the website, it has major new fiction releases and prize winning authors. It says, you can [00:19:00] discover emerging voices in conversation with established authors. Hear from winners of the International Booker Prize, women's Prize for Fiction, climate Fiction Prize, and Dylan Thomas Prize.

Meet the authors and get your book signed at the festival bookshop. So obviously there's a festival specific bookshop

Elizabeth: In addition to the 26 other

Martha: Right. Which I'm curious, , is that a temporary bookshop or is that, who knows? ,

Elizabeth: it must be temporary for the festival, I would think.

Martha: Yeah. That's so cute. They have different workshops from pizza making to creative writing, interesting, challenging panel debates on zeitgeist, topics from AI to reproductive rights.

Hear from documentary makers who are exposing the leading issues of today. Here's some of your favorite BBC radio programs and podcasts. Recorded live. That's cool.

Elizabeth: Hmm.

Martha: Choose from performances, ranging from [00:20:00] French Cabaret, , Jane. Austen. Based theatrical improv and genre splitting storytelling. 

Elizabeth: I'm so glad that you looked at the website to name some of those specific things 'cause I was having a hard time describing it, but listening to that list, it actually reminds me of some things. So , it's huge. You could tell by that list and I'm sure that's not all that was on the website probably.

, it sounds like so much fun. I was supposed to go to the festival in 2020 when I was living in England, but obviously didn't get to go because it was 2020, which I'll never get over, I don't think. But Alex has gone and said that it was amazing and it was a really long time ago that he went, I think that he, it was when he was at university, but he got to attend the recording of one of our favorite.

It started out as a radio show. Now it's probably a podcast, but saying that you can hear some of your favorite BBC radio programs recorded live reminded me that he got to attend the recording of, , one of the [00:21:00] episodes of History of the World in a hundred Objects, which is, I think it's a BBC program that was done with the British Museum, where, , this museum curator type guy talks about a hundred objects, obviously in the British Museum, but how they , tell the history of, various different times and parts of the world.

And it was so cool because he got to hold the object that the episode was about,

Martha: Oh, cool.

Elizabeth: in the audience got to pass it around, which is amazing. , he also said at one point he sat down on a couch and was chatting with a woman next to him just taking a break. If you've ever been to a festival, you know you're on your feet a lot, you're walking around.

It's really exhausting. , and afterward, after he was sitting on this couch and chatting with this woman and catching his breath, his friend later was like, oh my God, you were sitting next to AS Byatt and he was like, what?

Martha: Okay, so for people who don't know who that is, who is AS Byatt

Elizabeth: AS Byatt is a very famous British author. She [00:22:00] wrote, , possession is the name of her most famous book, which I read last year and is really, it's really good. , but is a very famous British author and Al didn't know who she was, which is hilarious. And I think that probably it really tickled her because , she probably wasn't expecting to go to a literary festival and have anyone not know who she was. So it was probably really funny. But anyway, if you can go to the Hay Festival, you definitely should. I still want to go at some point. , it wasn't happening when I was there this time, but. , I still wanna go and even when the festival isn't happening, Hay-on-Wye is basically the cutest place that I think I've ever gone

Martha: Tell us more about your trip.

Elizabeth: Yeah, . We got a little sidetrack at the, the festival part. So, it's like the most adorable place I've ever been. Wales is beautiful, so it's very bucolic picture. The quintessential idea of rolling English countryside that you have in your mind. Not English. Rolling British [00:23:00] countryside.

'cause it's whales. , and that's what whales looks like. It's these fields that are just rolling green hills of fields and they have a ton of sheep. And , it was the spring, so there were lambs when I was there. So, oh my God. Every time I look out the window of the bus or the train, there are just all these lambs frolicking in these fields.

And it was beautiful. And then the town itself is very picturesque. It's very quaint and very cute. And, , the first shop that I went into actually wasn't a bookstore, it was a stationary store. So that's just to say that there are. A lot of other businesses in the town, right? It's not like you go there and all there is is bookstores.

, so it was a lovely stationary store. Definitely one of the best stationary stores I've ever been to. I wanted to buy every single thing. , I looked it up 'cause I couldn't remember what it was called. It's called Bartrums and Company.

Martha: Oh, what types of things did they have?

Elizabeth: , it was two levels. Upstairs they had notebooks and [00:24:00] pads and cards, , every type that you could imagine. I got this really cute little Japanese set of note cards and envelopes and stuff that had stickers with cats all over them. It's almost too cute to use. I just can't get over it.

. They had tote bags, one with books and cats on it that I bought, , purses made out of books. They had a purse made out of that. Really stylized peacock feather version of pride and prejudice that

Martha: Oh yeah,

Elizabeth: where it's like the peacock tail. So they had a purse made out of that.

I don't know, just really cute stuff. And then downstairs they had hundreds of pens and ink and feather quills and , stuff for calligraphy . It was like a wonderland

Martha: That's the kind of store that immediately makes you get falsely self-confident, like, I could start doing calligraphy and I need to buy every tool that's required and I will start a side gig by doing this. And then you get home and start and you're like, this is, I can't do this.

So, 

but that was fun. 

Elizabeth: yeah, or , I'm gonna become the type of person that sends cards to all [00:25:00] my loved ones every month. And so I'm gonna buy all these cards because I'm gonna start sending them and I'm gonna put little cute stickers on them and they're gonna be on cat paper.

Martha: And then you never do.

Elizabeth: And then I never

Martha: Yeah.

It's fun to imagine though the possibilities.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. So that was amazing. And then I actually did go into a lot of bookstores, like I said. , I'm not gonna talk about all of 'em, but my favorite ones for anyone who ever goes here and wants, , recommendations. I would say my favorite bookstore that I went into there is called Richard Booths.

And it's exactly what you or what I, anyway, imagine an old timey British bookstore to be , everything is wood, the floors, the shelves, the stairs. It's all beautiful and ornately carved, but also really old and . The floors cre when you walk over 'em. And there's these wooden tables that are stacked with books and then comfy chairs, over stuff, chairs and couches all over the place for you to sit on and read.

, it also [00:26:00] had. Dotting the different little nooks and crannies, some really old and cool books on display. They had this really old huge Bible in Welsh, in the Welsh language. , which there's been a really concerted effort to save the Welsh language in the last couple of decades because it almost disappeared.

And then, thankfully, people who were born in Wales and had, grandparents and stuff that spoke Welsh, , revived it. And so now actually, when you go to Wales, all the signs are in both Welsh and English. And the recorded announcements on the train or on the elevators or whatever are first in Welsh and then in English.

So they're doing a really intentional job of reclaiming the language. Yeah. , so there was , this bible in Welsh that was covered in this really ornate leather with gold lettering. It had clasps to close the covers, these metal clasps. , and they also had stationary and a bunch of craft stuff.

They had knitting books and then they also had yarn and knitting needles and they had cross stitch stuff, which as you know, is 

my new obsession. And so that was hard to resist.[00:27:00] 

Martha: Wow. I'm surprised you didn't get cross stitch stuff then.

Elizabeth: I Just too much to bring back. Oh,

Well, I was trying to not buy a bunch of stuff in hay to bring back, because I. I'm sent to England every year with a list from Alex of all of the things that I need to bring back, especially because it's around Easter, so he wants all this Cadbury chocolate that we can't get here and like tea and all this stuff.

So my suitcase was basically half empty to bring home all the stuff I'd bring home. So I thought if, if instead I came home with books and cross stitch stuff, he might be a little,

Martha: Little disappointed. Yeah.

Elizabeth: yeah. But Richard Booths was, heaven. I could just curl up and live there and be super happy.

Martha: I feel like based on your description, I can smell it.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Exactly. And it did smell like that. It smells the way that you would expect. And it actually is the [00:28:00] bookstore that was in my mind as I was reading 84 Charring Cress Road. It is what I imagine Marks and co to be like, because there is that one letter when her friend goes to London, right?

And she asks her friend to write back and describe the bookstore to her. And basically it's like exactly what I just

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: So yeah, that was amazing. And I would say it was my favorite, , bookstore that I went into. But is a general, you know, like you were asking that question. And in the beginning, are they all just general bookstores or do they each have a theme?

It's just a general bookstore. Has every book that you could possibly imagine, all the different topics, all the different categories. , but it's just such a cool bookstore. It's two levels and it's pretty big. But then there were some bookstores that had a niche that they were filling, I really liked the one called Murder and Mayhem, which as you might imagine is a store that only sells mysteries and thrillers, so all kinds of mysteries and thrillers, , true [00:29:00] crime, detective, police, procedural cozy mysteries, noir, all that stuff.

And obviously classics like Agatha Christie, and, , sir. Arthur Conan Doyle, and all that stuff.

Martha: Cool.

Elizabeth: , and it was really, highly decorated with mystery type stuff. There was one room that has a body outline chalked on the floor and another room that had Dick Tracy , noir comic book style illustrations on the wall.

So it was very cute. Yeah, it was very

Martha: Very Instagramable.

Elizabeth: Yeah, so there were bookstores like that. Another one that was niche that I went into was called The Poetry Bookshop. And it's a poetry only bookstore as it sounds , and I think I read that it's the only poetry, only secondhand bookstore or something maybe in the country.

I don't know. It had some type of status as the only one of its kind. , so that was really cool. I also really liked the store called Francis Edwards. That was mostly really old books, so a lot [00:30:00] of first editions of things that I could never afford, but were really cool to look at. the biggest bookstore in the town is called Hay, cinema Bookshop.

 This bookshop . Had an unbelievable number of books. It actually said how many books that it had on this they gave you, they give you this little map of the store when you go in because they're like, it's so big that you might actually get lost and not be able to get back or not know where the different books are.

I mean, I wanna say it was le at least like a quarter, a million books. It was sort of the size of Powell's in Portland, which you've been to Martha, 

Martha: It can be overwhelming.

Elizabeth: Well, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I went in there and I was like, oh, that's cool. Wow. A map to find where the books are.

Okay. And I wandered around aimlessly for a couple minutes and then I was like, I just can't, I find book stores like that overwhelming. I actually don't really enjoy going to Powell's for that reason.

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: This is gonna sound so weird, but it makes my [00:31:00] stomach hurt. Has that ever happened to you?

Martha: No, but I understand what you're saying. , I think those kind of bookstores are really great when you're just looking for something specific and you're like, oh, they have a quarter million books. So odds are they'll have this book in stock , but if you just wanna go and browse and relax, it's not that experience.

Elizabeth: for some people it's relaxing, but not for me. I don't

Martha: Especially not at Powell's when it's really busy in Portland. I don't know if it was like that there, but.

Elizabeth: no, it wasn't really busy because it wasn't the peak season, you could imagine the peak season is during the festival and then also probably during the summer. So when I was there, there weren't a ton of people there. , but. It's big enough that it, I don't feel like it could possibly feel crowded, but yeah, I don't know.

There was something about it that just was, it was too much for me. , so I definitely liked the smaller, Richard Booths was not a small store, but it was manageable, you know?

Martha: Yeah,

Elizabeth: yeah.

Martha: man, it [00:32:00] sounds so great. It's definitely worth a visit, even though it's a tiny town. What's the rest of the town like those? Are there other things to do , obviously if you go there, you're gonna go to the bookstores, but what's the rest of it like?

Elizabeth: I definitely think it's worth going to just for itself. If you go and you have a car , there's definitely stuff in the surrounding area that would be cool to do. But even if you don't, I didn't have a car. I just went on the bus and. You can definitely fill a couple days, even with, , not spending the whole time going to bookstores.

, there are other businesses, like I mentioned, the stationary

store. But then there's also Hay Castle, which is an old, , castle right in the middle of the town that you can go into. And they have, exhibitions that you can go through. And it has a little green area where people were playing with their kids and their dogs where you can sit and read a book potentially.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that probably the most famous picture that you'll find [00:33:00] online of Hay-on-Wye is the Honesty bookshop that is inside the walls of Hay Castle. It's basically these two, long shelves or, sets of shelves on either side of the entrance to the castle walls that are just filled with books and they're each a dollar or something, or not a dollar a pound or something like that.

I don't know how much. , and if you take a book, you leave a pound, there's no one staffing it or

Martha: Oh, cool.

Elizabeth: It's really cool. Yeah. Obviously the books are not curated in any way, but if you , are there and are looking for a book to read, you can just buy a book for a pound and sit in the Castle Green area and read it, which I think would be really

fun., but yeah, it has an exhibit and it's really cool. , on the day that I was there, there was a group doing another exhibit in the market space . Market town is a designation in England it means it had a market. Back in the day , when we didn't have grocery stores, 

not every town had a market where meat would be sold [00:34:00] or grain or whatever. So all of the neighboring farmers would bring their stuff to the market town where the market was, and then people would go there to buy stuff. So , it's a market town and so in recent years it's where they would have their farmer's market, but it's this's, stone, concrete, whatever structure in the middle of the town that is covered, that's set up for, , rain or shine.

You can have a market there. But the day that I was there, there was a group doing a little exhibit about the history of paper making, randomly.

Martha: cool.

Elizabeth: Yeah, so , they had a video showing a paper mill and they had , a little stand where they explained about, , wasp Galls, which is one of the original places where we got ink and where we still get some ink from.

 , obviously this town is reliant on tourism for its economy, so it seems like they really make an effort to , have things going on in the town.

, there was a store called Mostly Maps that I went into that as it sounds like is a map store, but they had maps [00:35:00] from all over the uk from lots of different time periods. So they had folded maps from the sixties that. , you could buy for like five pounds or whatever. But they also had maps from, , the 16 or 17 hundreds, framed on the wall that showed the king's land versus this Earl owned this land and it was just so cool to look

at, uh, some of the, yeah, I sent Al the one, there were a few that I looked at that were of Nottinghamshire, which is the county where he is, where his family is from,

and yeah, I, it was, it was really cool Actually, I just remembered that I'm not, I wasn't supposed to take pictures in there, but I did and I sent him one.

Martha: Oh, oops. Because they want you to buy the maps, not take

Elizabeth: Yeah, 

exactly, exactly, 

Martha: I don't know if you even know this about me, Liz, but I love maps. I love looking at maps. All different

Elizabeth: I didn't know that about

Martha: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Not that that's relevant to our conversation, but it sounds really 

Elizabeth: I should have bought you a map.[00:36:00] 

Martha: I will just have to go someday myself.

Elizabeth: Yeah, you will have to go. I, I really, I, I thought about you a lot while I was there. The other thing that I really enjoyed about Hay is that there were a lot of vegan options, which, , I'm not a vegan, but when I travel I try to stick to , eating vegan because I have a really weird collection of food intolerances and vegan is the best shortcut for those.

So there was an ice cream place that had several vegan ice creams and there was a sandwich place that had a vegan grilled cheese. Not just your sort of standard , oh yeah, we have salads, or we have a veggie burger. . There was some creative vegan food that I really enjoyed.

Highly recommend.

Martha: That sounds so great.

Elizabeth: Yeah. So then this trip got me thinking about this idea of bookish vacations and how much fun it is to plan a trip around the idea of. Some version of books and reading, going to, Hay, obviously you're, , planning on seeing as many bookshops as you can. But, , it just got me thinking about other types of vacations that you could take that are [00:37:00] organized around reading events or activities for people like us, who are into that kind of thing.

, so you can go to an official book town. Like I said, I have all 10 of the ones from that Guardian article are on my list of I wanna travel there some days, but I feel like there are other ways to have a book themed vacation or a book inspired vacation too.

Martha: Mm-hmm. 

. I love this idea too. There's a few different categories of bookish vacations or vacations for book lovers, quote unquote, that the internet suggests. But Hay, sounds like it checks most of those boxes.

Elizabeth: Yeah. The one type of vacation could be going to a place with a lot of bookstores, or with a famous bookstore. So, Hay, obviously checks that box, or we've already talked about Powell's in Portland. a lot of the internet results that come up, we'll mention Shakespeare and Company in Paris, although obviously there's lots of other reasons to go to

Paris too. 

one that came up a lot when I was searching for other places with famous bookstores or with a lot of bookstores to go to is, , in Buenos [00:38:00] Ares, there's a bookstore called el ateneo bookstore that, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, so apologies, but it's a theater that was turned into a bookstore and it just is absolutely stunning.

 A old timey theater, right? Where they would do operas or, , things like that in the 19th century. So it's this very ornate inside and they've turned it into a bookstore. So they have shelves tucked in all of these little places. You should google it and look at the pictures. It's

Martha: Yeah. Sounds so cool. Another type of vacation you could do is go to a literary festival. So the Hay Festival should definitely be on that list, like we just talked about, and it happens in May, June-ish timeframe, but there's tons of other festivals like the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England, which happens in September.

Elizabeth: I wanna go to that

Martha: Yeah, that would be so fun. I feel like September would be a good time too , [00:39:00] it's kind of a shoulder season where maybe it's not super busy outside of the festival.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Martha: The Edinburgh International Book Festival in Scotland happens in August. There's the Tucson Festival of Books in Arizona in March, which we talked to Sarah t Dub about when we interviewed her, and there's the Japer Literature Festival in India, which is like January February timeframe, and it's supposedly the largest literary festival in the world, but there's a ton of 'em, big and small, so that's definitely something that you could plan a trip around.

It seems like the type of thing that if you're planning a trip somewhere in a different country that you've never been, it's worth checking out to see if they have literary festivals and if you can time your trip around it.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I had forgotten that Sarah t Dub talked about the Tucson Festival books, actually. But she definitely did. I never think of, for whatever reason, I never think of Tucson as a destination, but it's on all these lists as like top book [00:40:00] festivals in the world, so it seems like it's definitely worth 

going 

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I love that. So the other type of destination, which I have actually gone to a lot of is a literary site or a literary museum. A lot of times the museums are on the sites, ones that the internet mentions a lot are, , Ernest Hemingway's house in Key West, which I'm not a big earnest Hemingway fan, but I would go solely to see the cats because he famously had these, this six toed white cat that , he didn't fix.

And so then basically all of the cats in Key West are descended from

Martha: Oh my 

Elizabeth: cats that he had that had six toes.

Martha: know that.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Famously six toed cats are Ernest Hemingway's contribution to Key West. . I would like to see those cats. And then there's a Dr. Seuss museum that comes up a lot that's apparently really cool in Massachusetts.

, but as my Anglophilia has been established in this podcast, I've been to a ton of these in the uk. [00:41:00] So the Bronte parsonage in, Howorth England is really cool. It's similarly, an absolutely adorable little village, like Hay-on-Wye. , it has an old timey train station that if you watch British historical dramas, you will definitely have seen this train station because it's one of only a couple in the UK that basically don't have, any modern things that can spoil the shot.

It's just completely preserved as it was in the 19th century. And there's a steam train that runs there. It's

adorable. And the parsonage itself is really cool. And it's been really well. Curated and there's a museum dedicated to the Bronte's and they do all sorts of events there. So that's really cool.

I've also been to Jane Austen's House in Chawton. So Jane Austen lived in a lot of different places during her life, but Chawton house, , or not Chawton house, but the cottage in Chawton, is where she wrote the majority of her published books. So it's , a [00:42:00] very, , prolific time in her life where she did most of her writing in her adult life.

And so that has also been turned into a museum and it's a really well done, , cute educational museum. And it's also beautiful 'cause it's in the south of England and it's just lovely. And then also Chawton House, which I started to say I get them confused because they're both in Chawton. One is Chawton Cottage, one is Chawton House, which is basically the grand big house.

. Like Downton Abbey style in the village, which Jane Austen's brother owned. And now, , houses one of the largest collections of early women's writing. So women's writing that you probably haven't heard of, they have this huge collection of, and it's really cool, they, , have fellowships for women, academics and women writers every year and they have educational things that happen there.

It's a really cool place.

Martha: That sounds awesome.

Elizabeth: Yeah. , and then I've also been to Stratford upon Avon, which is, , where [00:43:00] Shakespeare was born and lived, , supposedly. , we don't, we know very little for sure about Shakespeare's life, but that was cool.

 It definitely is a little bit more of the full town type of experience is everything is Shakespeare and it was. , a little gimmicky, a little bit less tastefully done than some of the other places I've been to in England, but it was still really cool.

, and then I went to Elizabeth Gaskell's house and museum in Manchester, , and Elizabeth Gaskell wrote North and South among other things. , which, if you know me, you know , that Richard Thornton, BBC adaptation is one of my favorites. It's actually outside Manchester. But when the conference was there, I went there.

So basically every time I go to the uk I Google literary attractions near whatever city the conferences in. . I also doing research for this, episode. Found some other great ones that I would love to go to from a blog called the Melodramatic Bookworm that I have to give a shout out to because it's adorable blog of , this, , woman who just is a huge book [00:44:00] lover.

So there's the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. I'd love to go to that Agatha Christie's house in Devon is a museum dedicated to her. And then one that I would add is I really want to go to Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, , which was owned by Vita Sackville West, who was a sort of tangential member of the Bloomsbury Group with Virginia Wolf and actually was Virginia Wolf's lover for a long time, but was an author in her own right and had a really interesting life.

, and she lived there for a long time and got really into gardening at the end of her life. And so the gardens are stunning and they're world famous at that place. So I would love to go there. I could go on and on about this for a long time. So I'll stop

Martha: Man. , you've been to so many of these destinations, I feel like you invented this bookish vacation idea Liz. , of all the ones that you've been to, what are your favorites?

Elizabeth: , probably unsurprisingly the Jane Austen one, I would say, just because of how Jane [00:45:00] Austen is basically my favorite in so many categories, and it was very cool to see where she actually wrote. , , you've probably seen this on the internet 'cause it's pretty famous, but they have this little tiny writing table that is basically 

a little bit bigger than a dinner plate. It's this little tiny table. But that is where she sat and wrote most of her six novels. There was something about it that I felt an electricity from. , it was just so cool to see this actual thing that this person sat.

the Jane Austen stuff gets a little bit overblown, but it really was cool to see that for me.

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And then I would say probably , the Bronte Parsonage was the other place because similar to Hay-on-Wye, the whole town was really cute. So after you've done the Bronte parsonage, , there's still stuff to do.

 Al and I went there together actually, and we stayed a couple days and it was just, our Airbnb was super cute. There were some , , really cute little restaurants in the town. It was, yeah, it was a

Martha: so it's like the whole [00:46:00] experience.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Martha: Another one I've seen a lot on social media is, , this literary themed hotel. It's called the Library Hotel in New York City. I recently just saw an Instagram reel that I sent you, and it looks so cool. The floors are all themed around the major categories of the Dewey Decimal system, which is really cute.

And then 

each room is themed within that category. And then within the room, they have books from that category that you could read. And then basically reading is encouraged everywhere in the hotel. So if you want to go sit at the bar or whatever and get drinks and snacks and bring a book, that's totally normal.

It's not like you're gonna be the outlier reading a book and they have a rooftop bar with a fireplace and it just looks really cool.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that sounded really cool. I wanna go stay there. I will say that some of the hotels that I saw online looked a little bit gimmicky. They were like, yeah, we're a book themed hotel, but [00:47:00] then they just have a library, which is cool. I want hotels to have. A library with books in it where you can sit down, but the library hotel in New York City sounds really actually cool and like they've carried the book theme through the whole experience.

Another hotel like that that I've stayed in in Oregon a few times is called the Sylvia Beach Hotel, , which is named after the original owner of that Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris that's really famous. , and each of the rooms similar to this library, hotel, , each of the rooms are themed around a specific author though.

So I have stayed in the Jane Austen room. Clearly Al and I stayed in the Agatha Christie room. I've stayed in a couple of other rooms too, and it's just really cute. It has a library looking out over the ocean where you can read and do puzzles, and they put out wine at night that you can just have for free.

And, , it doesn't allow phones or the internet. I went there on a little personal writing retreat once, and so I could bring my laptop, but I couldn't be on the internet with it, so it was [00:48:00] perfect. I really love it there. And I actually realized while I was doing research for this, that, , it recently was closed and then bought by new people, which I actually now remember that the last time we went, I remember seeing that the people who owned it were retiring, so it's been bought by this new group of people and they're renovating it, but it sounds like they're gonna keep the book theme, so hopefully they don't ruin it.

I'm looking forward to seeing it after 

Martha: Yeah. Hopefully it's all for the best and , not a totally different experience.

Elizabeth: The internet also turned up this place called Book and Bed in Tokyo, which , again, there are lots of reasons to go to Tokyo, but it looks. So wild in that way that I feel like sometimes things that happen in Japan, I'm just like, oh my God. , they're just so creative. Everyone is so creative. , it has shelves that are really wide, so the books are on the shelves, but then , the shelves are wide enough to sleep on.

So , I think the idea is that [00:49:00] they put out a little sleeping pad , and blanket, on the shelf next to the books and , it looks like big stairs basically. So all the shelves have books on them, but they also have a sleeping space. It's just, so

it would definitely be interesting.

Martha: the, I mean, I just imagine the concept is you get sleepy while you read and then you just have a place to fall asleep.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. are you in a room with a bunch of different random 

people?, I don't know. I have a lot of questions, but it definitely looks like it would be a unique experience.

. So another thing to possibly plan a bookish vacation around, I would be remiss if I didn't mention, , the idea of. Libraries. Either a place with a lot of libraries or with a specific library that you want to see.

 There are some libraries that are destinations, like the Library of Congress in Washington dc, the British Library in London. , the main New York public library in Manhattan that has the lions on the outside, , Trinity College in , Dublin. , [00:50:00] Ireland apparently has a famously huge and beautiful library, which made me think of, , if you're visiting Seattle, I would definitely recommend going to Suzzallo Library because it has this huge, really tall ceilings, ornate, beautiful big reading room, , that has been in movies, , they call it the Harry Potter Room.

I don't actually think that it's been in Harry Potter, but it has that type of vibe, people come from all over to look at it. , and I actually worked there when I was in grad school and I felt really lucky every day to go into that library. . And then Book Riot actually did an article about bookish cities.

And apparently, the city in the world with the most libraries per capita is Warsaw, Poland. So if you're going there, you might wanna plan to go to some of the libraries. Yes. , and then in that same article they said that , also it has been established that the town with the most little free libraries per capita is called Lake Worth Beach in Florida.

Martha: Hmm.

Elizabeth: [00:51:00] And I have a rant about little free libraries that I won't go on because we don't have time. But if you like that

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Lake Worth Beach, Florida is 

where is 

where you should go? , there were also lots of other, more esoteric ideas that didn't warrant an entire category. But I saw this post on Instagram that I saved actually from a while ago about.

A BB slash bookstore in the UK that you can stay at and then also work at the bookstore. So at first I was like, wow, that's a good deal if you can get it. You , get people to pay you to work in your bookstore. But actually it's an entirely volunteer, run through this process of volunteers coming to work for it and they give a bunch of their money to charity.

So it's a nice little thing. It's called the Open Book. It's in Wigton, which is a small town in southern Scotland apparently. So again, a little UK

focused, but yeah.

Martha: Speaking of outside the box [00:52:00] ideas, this isn't a vacation per se, but my friend Brittany just hosted a book dinner party, which was really cute. Everyone brought a basket that was themed around their favorite romance book. So , you picked a romance book you wanted to exchange and you built a basket around it.

 I picked Happy Place by Emily Henry and I got beach vacation theme stuff, like a beach hat and a tote and a beach towel and things like that. And it was really cute. So we did a , gift exchange style where we drew numbers and then we picked a basket and you could steal it once if you wanted one.

You know, it was really

Elizabeth: Oh, like white

Martha: Yeah, a white elephant style exchange.

Elizabeth: Oh my gosh. That's so cute. I love

Martha: Yeah, it was super

fun. So that's an idea. You could do something like that.

Elizabeth: You know, that actually [00:53:00] brings up something in the bookish vacation realm that came up when I was searching too. That sounds, I think, maybe more fun to me than even some of these other things that we've talked about and apparently is really growing in popularity, which is a friend's reading retreat vacation.

 I'll link the article in the show notes that I read about it, but it's called Why a Reading Retreat is the Girls Trip. Idea, you need to Try this year. And I was immediately like, yes, sign me up. , I don't even need to hear anything else. I feel like we all need this in our lives, but basically it's exactly what it sounds like.

You get a group of friends together that all like to read. . That would be important. Don't. Invite someone to this that , isn't gonna be into the idea , of spending a vacation reading, but basically you get a bunch of friends together, you book a place probably somewhere conducive to reading, right?

Like a cottage by the sea or a cabin in the woods or something, but whatever, it could be somewhere else. , and you just basically plan to spend the days reading instead of sightseeing. Whereas you might do a group vacation where you [00:54:00] plan outings, instead you basically just plan to sit by the pool and read or sit by the sea and read cozy up in the house and read and , have snacks and plan meals and maybe do an evening activity that's conducive, maybe a movie or a puzzle or something, but maybe just more reading.

But basically it's this idea that you have a girl's trip that's just all about chilling, relaxing and eating girl dinner together basically.

Martha: cute.

Elizabeth: It just sounds so perfect. I'm like, yes.

Martha: It is like a, A yoga retreat. . I love that idea that could be so much more attainable than some of these other bookish vacation ideas too. You could go somewhere close to home with a group of girlfriends or something like that, and you could keep it very low key, like you said. Or you could do themed dinners based on one of the books that someone's reading and themed cocktails or, you know, you could do,

Elizabeth: Oh, that's so cute, 

Martha: you could watch an adaptation of one of the books that someone's reading.

There's lots of cute little things [00:55:00] you could do.

Elizabeth: Oh my God. I feel like this needs to be a business idea. We could come up with themed reading, vacation packages that we sell

Martha: Yeah. As all books allowed. There we go.

Elizabeth: Well, if anyone else is, , really, , proactive with that, maybe you could, , steal that idea from us. But yeah, I love that. I want someone to plan that type of a trip for me. , let's plan that ASAP.

Martha: that sounds great.

Elizabeth: Because the other thing is that you could do just a day of a trip being the reading day or whatever, right?

 It doesn't have to be the whole

Martha: Yeah, there's so many things you

Elizabeth: Or like you said, it could be close to home. It could be just an overnight, it could be just the evening.

Martha: You could do, , like a yoga retreat. They do a yoga class in the morning and then they do an activity and a chill during the day, and then a yoga class at night. So you could have morning coffee and reading time, and then you all do an activity and then you have more reading time later , so it could really be a mix of whatever you wanted it to be.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I love that. Now I wanna go on vacation again immediately and do [00:56:00] one of these things.

Martha: That sounds great. Awesome. Well, we have a ton of ideas now, so time to book some tickets.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Martha: If you want even more bookish content, follow us on Instagram and TikTok at all books Allowed pod. If you have any other ideas for bookish vacations, send us an email to all books allowed pod@gmail.com and share your ideas. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode, and leave us a rating and a review.

It helps other people find us and read on my friends. 

[All Books Aloud theme music]