Hay now, don’t dream it’s over

Like countless others, I feel caught in an eternal tug-of-war against myself, trapped between the vice-like indulgences I’d like to dial down (gorging on cheese, swearing at BMW drivers, endless doom-scrolling) and things I aspire to do more of (exfoliation, sunrise yoga, learning circus skills). And sitting at the top of my well-intentioned “must do more of these” list is the noble pursuit of reading actual, real-life 3D books.
 
Are you on the same page?
 
Actually, if you’ve made it as far as this paragraph, mazel tov. Your attention span trumps mine. Because with the unstoppable rise of social media, the irresistible allure of clickbait headlines and the ceaseless, soul-obliterating torrent of information that bludgeons our senses every day, it’s a miracle that any of us read anything longer than a tweet anymore.
 
I firmly believe there is no greater pleasure than finishing a good book in one sitting. Who has time, though, seriously? Last weekend I heard a writer at Hay Festival describe people with time for leisure pursuits as “time millionaires”, and it’s a phrase that stuck with me. I genuinely believe that the wealthiest people in the world are those with the time to consume books the way I munch my way through a bag of Babybels.
 
Books, those bound – and boundless – tomes of literary delight, offer us all a precious silent companionship. They’re always on standby, ready to whisk you away on an adventure – away from the humdrum real world – faster than any budget airline.
 
My shelves buckle under the load of hundreds of books, while my conscience is burdened by the fear that I’ll have shuffled off this mortal coil long before I’ve managed to read them all. And still, I continue to buy more books in the eternal delusion that someday, I’ll have the kind of life where I can lounge around in a hammock, working my way through the backlog. Madness. I don’t even own a hammock.
 
And this is why Hay Festival – Burning Man for bookworms, only with less sand and more Boden – is one of my favourite things in the Welsh cultural calendar. For ten days, you get to waft around a beautiful part of the country, listening to authors talk about their creative process and becoming thoroughly absorbed in the world of books. What’s not to love?
 
One wag claimed it’s the festival that puts champagne into socialism, but I’ll defend it to the death because I believe we’re lucky to have it. This year there were over 500 events and 650 speakers, with something to appeal to everybody – from quantum mechanics to philosophy, art and travel.
 
But for me, the joy of Hay isn’t the headline speakers – it’s about sitting around in deckchairs reading, surrounded by others doing the same. A literary Utopia where you can brush up on the life skill of sitting with a good book without being distracted.
 
I’ve often joked that if you dropped a bomb on the festival site, you’d depopulate most of Pontcanna and Hampstead. That’s why it’s important that I – and people from all walks of life – persist in attending. Like all good parties, someone has to lower the tone.
 
This year’s line-up was a particular triumph. Recognising the need to appeal to a younger audience, the organisers booked grime artist Stormzy – who set up Merky books to give young writers from under-represented communities a platform – and pop star Dua Lipa, who has launched a book club called Service 95. A canny partnership with TikTok also saw book-loving content creators hosting events and filming content on-site. Waiting in line for some of the events felt like waiting for a One Direction concert, a certified GOOD THING™. It was great to see so many teenagers enthused about literature, swapping recommendations in the queues to get their books signed and many of them – GASP – not even on their phones. Making eye contact and conversation. It felt like 1996 or something.
 
There were so many Hay highlights for me this year. I was lucky to meet my heroine, Marina Hyde (satirist in chief, national treasure and all-round mensch), who was just LUSH.
I chatted to Scottish author Douglas Stuart about how his Booker-winning novel Shuggie Bain made me cry (a rare example of a book I finished in days, such was its power).
 
But my favourite moment was when former children’s laureate Malorie Blackman OBE gave an impassioned speech on the power of libraries. She explained how growing up in south London, she couldn’t afford the bus fare to the central library and how having a library in her neighbourhood meant she could access books her family couldn’t afford. She spoke passionately about how that gave her a passport to a different life, one she could never have imagined for herself, given her background. And she raged at how public spending cuts have closed almost 800 libraries in the past decade – a fifth of the UK’s total in a campaign of vandalism against our culture, our communities and social mobility.
 
As I joined in the rapturous applause, I thought back to my local library in Abersychan – where my love affair with books began in the mid-1980s. I thought about how my mam would take us there every Thursday to pick out our reading for the week. About how the books I chose with the help of the friendly librarian became passports and portals to new worlds. About how ultimately life-changing that weekly pilgrimage became for me.
 
Libraries matter because they offer democratic access to the transformative power of literature. They stand firm against the digital tide, a testament to the human hunger for wisdom and discovery. Hay Festival encapsulates this spirit, reminding us of literature’s enduring magic and the joy of losing yourself in a good book.
 
This year, 43 libraries, 77 schools, 7,500 pupils and over 21,000 further and higher education students live-streamed events. So for those unable to make it to a field in Powys, the magic remained accessible.
 
So here’s to Hay, that eternal oasis for all the part-time and wannabe time millionaires out there. See you in the festival bookshop in 2024? That should be enough time to get through this year’s purchases. Closes Word, orders hammock.