Richard Booth, Self-Crowned King of Used Books, Dies at 80

He seems like a true gentleman in the best and British sense of the word. In this world dominated by the electronic screen, he created an oasis for the book and printed word. He seemingly created a Hobbiton of sorts for books, which is very delightful. In this age of rushing to and fro, he settled in one place and set about building a dream which positively impacted society on multiple levels: economically, educationally, aesthetically, etc. May others carry on his work and long may his legacy endure!

I wonder what I should find when I wander there to tickle my mind... books are such an education, and if you don't like them, they're still good insulation

R I P, and glory and honor to his name.

"... Mr. Booth in the early 1960s embarked on a quixotic wholesale buying spree that spoke volumes." i see what you did there.

Any one remember NYC's Fourth Avenue of two generations ago?

Rest in peace, fellow bookseller.

R.I.P. Mr Booth. It is always lovely to have a nice trip to Hay. Greetings from a fellow Welsh and book lover!

Thank you, Gray Lady!! It’s so nice to read the Times and find an utterly useless yet completely fascinating story!

What a joy, and now a cry There to visit Hay-on-Wye fall, 1989 summer 1999

I'd love to have known him! My kind of guy: an eccentric book person who turned a clearly pointless (by most standards of today) hobby into a business that employed many and gave satisfaction and happiness to more! Hope his remaining second hand book shop remains alive!

Upon learning that I was to be in England in early 1984, while on spring break from New York University, a history professor of mine from a small seminar on Victorian England in the fall 1983 semester, Ann Burton - who was also a faculty dean - had alerted me to Hay-on-Wye. I took the commuter train from Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, where my parents and sister were living then, to Marylebone Station in London, thence to a train out to Hereford on the border with Wales. I spent the night at a local inn after a dinner at a nearby restaurant with the innkeepers' daughter-assistant and a travelling-salesman regular guest of theirs. The next morning I took a bus through the heart of the English and Welsh sheep country out to Hay-on-Wye. During my student days back then, I divided much of my reading time between historical study of the literary-journalistic culture of New York and of that in London - which led me about thirty years later to write the Wikipedia articles on the magazines Encounter (1953-1990) and (small p) politics (1944-1949) - and recall having taken with me for reading on the trains a used paperback copy of the philosopher and broadcaster Bryan Magee's small volume on Karl Popper in the Fontana Modern Masters series. Upon browsing the shelves of the various used bookshops in Hay, I ended up with perhaps two dozen or so books to take back with me, all of them, as you might have inferred from the article, at rather knockdown prices. I recommend taking the trip.

Oh dear Booth! How many of his wonderful library I was able to amass from 1981 till my dying days at faraway NYU in the mid 1990’s all coming by ship, planes, and by my personal hands from Wales to a nondescript borough named Queens of whose name he approved of. RIP my illustrious friend.

Hay-on-Wye, Strand-on-Broadway; poe-tay-toe, pah-tah-tow. Life is richer for both of them. Farewell Mr. Booth.

Bookish the bloke but just second hand, Made himself wealthy, aren't books grand; Still, toppled over then his time had come - Bought and sold books; he had a good run, But still this obit omits what he was - Bizarre in his person, hair was just fuzz.

Wonderful! A remarkable human spirit celebrated, and his story beautifully told. Thank you, Sam Roberts. You have made my day.

I have the fondest memories of visiting in 2017 with six other book collectors. Stories best retold over a pint. It is and may always be one of the most charming places I have had the pleasure of visiting. I hope to return one day with me children and niece and nephew so they too can appreciate both the town and books.

Hay-on-Wye is one of the few places where I can feel that all is right with the world. Thank you for contributing so much to this magical oasis, Mr Booth. Rest in Peace.

Hopefully his legacy will live on through inspired start-ups of local independent bookstores following his formula. A good book shop is a treasure, especially ones that carry used titles. Stores that only stock new titles seem a bit limited and watered down.

Great story, this is what makes the world go round. A book is only second hand for the person that read it. In every reading of a book, it is new again. They are a true renewable resource.

Back in the 1970s, a bookstore in Toronto bought, sight unseen, a container-load of books from Booth and discovered that a large proportion of its purchase consisted of 18th-century theological works in Welsh. Still, there were some interesting titles amid the dross. I still have a few books that I bought at the time, including one, published in 1887, whose argument was that by 1987 we would be communicating solely by mental telepathy.

Hay-on-Wye, Strand-on-Broadway; Life is richer for both of them. Farewell Mr. Booth.

I never knew of him, but we were competitors of a sort as a visit to my attic where hundreds of books reside in solitary comfort and splendor will confirm. Rest in peace man of books, I hope you managed to bring many good ones along.

Hail, the Traveler, as he goes forth shining from this world, our blessings and gratitude trailing behind him! Thank you, Richard Booth, from one bibliophile to another! I spent a very happy holiday tooling around Hay-on-Wye, and found so many wonderful titles that I had to send the books home. The most fabulous book I ever saw outside a museum was at Hay-on-Wye: a presentation copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground affectionately signed by Charles Dodgson to Hans Christian Andersen. Whoa! I steamed up the glass on the case of that book! It was thousands of pounds, and a privilege to view!

I holidayed in Hay with my parents in 1995, knowing nothing about the place beforehand. We'd come for the hill-walking but stumbled on a literary wonderland. And in one of Booth's higgledy-piggledy shops I chanced upon a biography that became the inspiration for my first book. Thank you, Mr. Booth, for the love you shared and the global movement you started - there's even a Hay Festival in my adoptive country of Mexico. The king is dead. Long live his legacy!

without richard booth and his books, the late 20th c and early 21st c would have been much impoverished by the loss of books he salvaged for bibliophiles. Hay on Wye became the Woodstock of book buying, an event as much for dedicated book lovers and those that came for the entertainment of seeing these strange creatures who crave books and more books. A certain madness surrounds those who buy/sell and collect books. booth will never have a rival. it is hoped that what he created will continue to flourish for the celebration it became. RIP.

Mr Booth is a real hero to all of us book lovers. His reputation and that of Hay-on-Wye made it to all the corners of the Earth. Long live the King!