Hay Festival - A Book Lover's Circus in on the Welsh Borders

• What: Gigantic book lovers bash
• When: May 24 to June 3
• Where: In a series of temporary marquees and stages set up in fields beside the town.
• Admission: From £4 to £35 for the closing gala. Many events are free.
• Website

Hay-on-Wye is a small town on the Welsh border marches with a population of about 1,300 and 39 bookshops most of them stuffed to the rafters (and the cellars and sub-cellars and sub-sub cellars!) with quality second hand books.

Booklovers have flocked here for years for the annual Hay Festival, now sponsored by The Guardian. It's a chance to meet authors, attend debates and readings, enjoy some high toned entertainment, collect signed first editions and buy lots and lots of books, used and new. All in all, there are more than 400 events to choose from. This The major event on the UK book festival circuit. Bill Clinton called it, "The Woodstock of the Mind". In British parlance, you might say it's "a right old knees up" for the literati.