From Publishers Weekly
Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town of 1,500, is heaven on earth for people who love books, especially old books. It has 40 bookstores, and if you can't find what you want in one of them, you can fork over 50 pence and visit the field behind the town castle, where thousands more long-forgotten books languish under a sprawling tarp. McSweeney's contributor Collins moved his wife and baby son from San Francisco to Hay a few years ago, intending to settle there. This book is Collins's account of the brief period when he organized American literature in one of the many used-book stores, contemplated and abandoned the idea of becoming a peer in the House of Lords, tried to buy an affordable house that wasn't falling apart (a problem when most of the buildings are at least a century old) and revised his first book (Banvard's Folly). Collins can be quite funny, and he pads his sophomore effort with obscure but amusing trivia (how many book lovers know that the same substance used to thicken fast-food milk shakes is an essential ingredient in paper resizing?), but it's hard to imagine anyone beyond bibliophiles and fellow Hay-lovers finding enough here to hold their attention. Witty and droll though he may be, Collins fails to give his slice-of-life story the magic it needs to transcend the genre. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The McSweeney's gang may be the closest thing we have to a genuine literary circle; if its members have produced smug, postmodern chapter titles, such as "Chapter Two relies on the travelogue cliche of a garrulous cabdriver," they've also written some books that whistle like fresh air through the bookstore. Collins' travelogue/memoir is a book lover's delight, minus the pretense you might expect from someone schooled in obscure eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. With his wife and young son, he moves to Hay-on-Wye, Wales, a village with one bookstore for every 37.5 residents. The narrative is structured around his house-buying attempts and the impending publication of his first book, but the meat of the work lies in his meandering asides and bookstore discoveries. His intellect changes focus often, but crisply, and it's a pleasure to observe him in the act of observation: Who would have thought there was still new ground to cover on the topic of Anglo-American differences? Collins muses often on the impermanence of books, but this one will grace shelves for years to come. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


,Boston Globe,
"Sixpence House is the bookworm's answer to A Year in Provence."


Review
"Collins' gift is that you don't care where you end up. The journey is enough."


,Readerville,
"Collins' gift is that you don't care where you end up. The journey is enough."


Book Description
Paul Collins and his family abandoned the hills of San Francisco to move to the Welsh countryside-to move, in fact, to the village of Hay-on-Wye, the "Town of Books" that boasts fifteen hundred inhabitants-and forty bookstores. Taking readers into a secluded sanctuary for book lovers, and guiding us through the creation of the author's own first book, Sixpence House becomes a heartfelt and often hilarious meditation on what books mean to us.



About the Author
Paul Collins is the author of Banvard's Folly: Thirteen People Who Didn't Change the World, and most recently Not Even Wrong. He edits the Collins Library for McSweeney's Books, and his work has appeared in New Scientist, Business 2.0, and Tin House.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Paul Collins and his family abandoned the hills of San Francisco to move to the Welsh countryside - to move, in fact, to the little cobblestone village of Hay-on-Wye, the "Town of Books," boasting 1,500 inhabitants...and forty bookstores. Antiquarian bookstores, no less." "Hay's newest residents accordingly take up residence in a sixteenth-century apartment over a bookstore, meeting the village's large population of misfits and bibliomaniacs by working for world class eccentric Richard Booth - the self-declared King of Hay, owner of the local castle, and proprietor of the world's largest and most chaotic used book warren. A useless clerk, Paul delights in shifting dusty stacks of books around and sifting them for ancient gems like Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable, Confession of an Author's Wife, and I Was Hitler's Maid. Meanwhile, as he struggles with the final touches on his own first book, Banvard's Folly, nearing publication in the United States, he also duly fulfills his duty as a British citizen by simultaneously applying to be a peer in the House of Lords and attempting to buy Sixpence House, a beautiful and neglected old tumbledown pub for sale in the town's center." Sixpence House is an engaging meditation on what books mean to us, and how their meaning can resonate long after they have been abandoned by their public.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

Reading of his sojourn in Hay is pleasantly akin to browsing one of its bookstores because Collins...delivers a funny excerpt from a forgotten old volume...for every occasion.

The Washington Post

Sixpence House, Collins's account of his adventures during the search, is funny, informative, somewhat chaotic and full of interesting references to old (mostly Victorian- and Edwardian-era) books and magazines that throw light on almost everything one could wish to know about old and moldy -- sometimes called "wormy" -- houses and books. — Paul Collins

Publishers Weekly

Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town of 1,500, is heaven on earth for people who love books, especially old books. It has 40 bookstores, and if you can't find what you want in one of them, you can fork over 50 pence and visit the field behind the town castle, where thousands more long-forgotten books languish under a sprawling tarp. McSweeney's contributor Collins moved his wife and baby son from San Francisco to Hay a few years ago, intending to settle there. This book is Collins's account of the brief period when he organized American literature in one of the many used-book stores, contemplated and abandoned the idea of becoming a peer in the House of Lords, tried to buy an affordable house that wasn't falling apart (a problem when most of the buildings are at least a century old) and revised his first book (Banvard's Folly). Collins can be quite funny, and he pads his sophomore effort with obscure but amusing trivia (how many book lovers know that the same substance used to thicken fast-food milk shakes is an essential ingredient in paper resizing?), but it's hard to imagine anyone beyond bibliophiles and fellow Hay-lovers finding enough here to hold their attention. Witty and droll though he may be, Collins fails to give his slice-of-life story the magic it needs to transcend the genre. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This book is unique in its modesty in handling the largely historical topic of books as tokens of our humanity. Collins (Banvard's Folly) gently sifts through geography, eccentric architecture (retrostructures), and Victorian and American trivia to weave a charming, humane, and attractive story of a man and his family relocating from California to England to work with antiquarian books. The author settles with his wife and younger son in a small town on the Welsh border that only has 1500 inhabitants but more than 40 antiquarian bookstores. He lands a job as a clerk at the town's largest bookstore and spends his days shifting through piles of old books. This part travelog, part literary memoir is a thoughtful exploration of one person's fascination with books, a human study of utility that dovetails with Elaine Scarry's more theoretical Dreaming by the Book and Alberto Manguel's A History of Reading. Highly recommended for all libraries and for all readers who know the joy of being lost in a town of books.-Scott Hightower, Fordham Univ., New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews