posted by Liana Giorgi.
The best time to visit Pemberton’s bookshop on the festival site is either early in the morning or late in the evening and when events are under way. The worst time is to go there immediately after an event. That is when everyone wants to go to the bookshop and the reason for this is the book signings. There are four lanes outside the bookshop and up to four book signings taking place at any particular time. The queues sometimes extend beyond the bookshop and well into the queuing lanes for entering the Guardian Stage. The numbers are, of course, different. The queues for Doris Kearns Goodwin signing her book Team of Rivals (about Abraham Lincoln) or for Stephen Fry, there to talk about America and to sign various of his books, extend to over 200 people; those for younger or less known authors writing about migration, such as Brian Chikwava, come to just over 30. Queues for book signings are probably a good indication as to what the British read nowadays, and this seems to be political biographies, historical novels and family stories about the Second World War. Those like Zadie Smith who criticize literature festivals – like the media more generally for creating a hype around literature that tends to produce mediocre output and standardization – would probably find the physical evidence of their fears in queues for book signings (and comparing them). On the other hand, the fact that some books are more likely to be read than others is nothing new and would probably have existed without the media or festival hype. It is difficult to say. For myself, I hate queuing and do not even like my books to be signed by authors. What for? Surely the book does not gain in contents-related value because it has been signed. If anything, it might gain in monetary value at some distant time in the future. But this would be relevant, if at all, for my grandchildren, but I dislike thinking of them in such terms (besides, I don’t have any yet).
The queues outside Pemberton’s at the festival site are nevertheless a problem in another respect, i.e. for the many bookshops in the town of Hay. According to an article in ‘The Independent’, published in January 2009, several booksellers in Hay complain that the festival impacts negatively on their business. Some talk about a fall in sales of as much as 50%. On the whole, there is growing concern about the festival’s mutation into a ‘corporate monster’. In my observation, the town is absolutely crowded during the festival season, with shops, pubs and restaurants doing very good business, it seems. As far as bookshops are concerned, it is true that some are not attracting more visitors than usual, but there are many reasons for this. One is surely because many festival visitors are eager to buy the books featured in the festival, and these are easiest to get at the festival site. Another reason, however, is that many of the town bookshops are very specialized and thus target a niche market.
