Hay

Jim Saunders' book is a photographic record of the town which celebrates its environs and people. Hay-on-Wye is famous for bookshops, the Hay literature festival and its stunning location. Saunders' book encapsulates them in photographs and informative text on the area and authors like Bruce Chatwin, Francis Kilvert, and Alfred Watkins. Jim Saunders new book is a portrait of Hay, its setting and its people in words and photographs. Atmospheric and insightful images are interspersed with an informative exploration of the towns history and the stories and characters associated with it among them Francis Kilvert, Alfred Watkins, Hay poisoner Herbert Armstrong, the Baskerville/Conan Doyle connection, Bruce Chatwin, Eric Gill, Owain Glynd r, Richard Booth, and the Hay Festival. The book also includes brief vignettes about ordinary Hay people a Radnorshire farmer, Paralympian Josie Pearson, a mysterious German PoW, the local carpenter, and businesswoman Joyce Gervis among them. The result is a record of the relationship in which a landscape of great beauty shapes a people, and a people shape a unique place. Jims book is peppered with glorious images of the town and the surrounding countryside, and telling portraits of inhabitants and visitors. It is as special as the place and people it portrays.