{"title":"James Hanning","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"the-bookseller-of-hay-the-life-and-times-of-richard-booth","title":"The Bookseller of Hay: The Life and Times of Richard Booth","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"a-section a-spacing-small a-padding-small\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eIn 1962, a young man left university without a degree and, for want of anything better to do, bought a small shop in an obscure market town on the edge of the Brecon Beacons. Within fifteen years, largely through force of personality, Richard Booth had created the world's largest second-hand bookshop, attracting thousands of visitors from across the globe to Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh border.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Bookseller of Hay tells the tale of an extraordinary, chaotic man, a true British eccentric, who invented the term 'book town', attracted a coterie of exotic and illustrious followers, crowned himself king, declared the town's independence and provided the bookish backdrop which - to his frustration - allowed a rival attraction, the now world-famous Hay Festival, to flourish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is a story of the extraordinary singlemindedness of a hard-working, hard-playing and rebellious son of privilege, inspired by a romantic vision and a deep love of the area, of a man better suited to publicity than bean-counting who launched countless careers but whose business instincts undermined precisely what had brought success. Booth was a deeply divisive figure, but love him or hate him, all agree on one thing. He put Hay on the map.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eJames Hanning, a frequent visitor to Hay since the 1960s, has interviewed dozens of local people and booksellers and with typical acuity wonderfully captures this bygone era of eccentricity and excess.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"a-section a-spacing-small a-padding-small\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eRichard Booth was a divisive figure.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeyond the briefest of encounters in the street, I never really met him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat follows is based on written material and the recollections of others. And among those, often there is little consensus. To some he was a benign, paternal, swashbuckling advocate for what his father's generation would have called 'the common man'. To others he was a shambolic, egotistical, capricious, unreliable spendthrift.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf the reader is able to draw more settled conclusions than I am about a highly idiosyncratic figure, I am delighted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eWithout Booth, Hay would be just another border town. His influence remains immense, and his story\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eworth telling.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Goldsboro Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56179535708533,"sku":"978-1472159786","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0733\/4900\/5606\/files\/40d4ff9d-ee4a-4ff0-a773-4dc507f76bec.jpg?v=1761584455"}],"url":"https:\/\/goldsborobooks.pro\/collections\/james-hanning.oembed","provider":"Goldsboro Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}