Sixpence House

Rating:
Summary: Charming, but something of a letdown by the end
Review: I enjoyed 'Sixpence House' more than I thought I might. At first the general idea of the story seemed slight to me, but Paul Collins is a wonderful writer, self-deprecating but genuinely smart and very funny in an unexpected way. I laughed out loud a lot, which I don't often do when I read. His appreciation for the absurdities in antiquated writing was dead on, and the book quotes were particularly enjoyable to me. I also liked getting to know his son; his observances, so brief and sweet, reminded me a bit of Adam Gopnik's essays in 'Paris to the Moon'. I was wishing the book would go on and on, but then the end abruptly came and I felt deflated. Why did they decide to leave Hay-on-Wye, and with such little thought? Had they invested nothing in the place after all? And if not, then what was the point of the journey? The abrupt ending made me feel as if Collins gave up the ghost on the town, and on the book, too. He just sort of...quit. I'm waiting for part two.

Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Delight
Review: I fell in love with "Sixpence House" from the opening pages. It's not a travelogue, yet it gives the reader a wonderful sense of the place called Hay-on-Wye; it's not a guidebook for those publishing their first book, although we do share some of the labor pangs as Collins' first tome, the also wonderful "Banvard's Folly" advances to press; and it's not a compendium of unusual finds in forgotten books, though you'll find plenty of these here. If you demand a straightforward, linear sort of narrative, you might not love this. But if you enjoy sharing the keen intellect, thrill of discovery and gentle, wry wit of another bibliophile, you most certainly will. No lover of the printed word should pass it by.

Rating:
Summary: Sixpence House - A Thoroughly Entertaining Book.
Review: I picked up a copy of Sixpence House to browse through because it had a picture of books on the cover. I love books and that includes reading about books. I purchased it because the excerpts that I read were extremely interesting. Sixpence House turned out to be one of those rare books that you hate to put down. While Paul Collins does relate his trials and tribulations concerning his attempts to get his first book published and to purchase a home in Hay-on-Wye in Wales, he does so in between some of the most interesting, humorous and captivating anecdotes that I have had the pleasure to read in quite some time. I so thoroughly enjoyed the book that I often felt compelled to read selected passages to my wife to share my pleasure with her. If you love books, you will enjoy Sixpence House. But even more, if you enjoy being entertained by a book, then you will love Sixpence House.

Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Little Visit
Review: I really enjoyed this book, and found myself looking forward to the time I had to spend with Mr. Collins and the people he introduces us to. I am a total book hound, and although I don't really know the value of many books or really know very much about the book collecting business...I practically swoon when I walk into a book store, so this book sounded intriguing. Not just a whole book store, but a whole town of books!!Also, I have always , very dreamily, envisioned myself living in a small town in England, enjoying the gardens, rains and eccentric people. Then of course, I remember I am a spoiled American through and through and wouldn't give my life up for anything, but it is a fun fantasy. So..this book kept me in fantasy land for a couple of days, and I can return there anytime I want! This is a must read for any bibliophiles or Anglophiles, and if you are both, you have hit the jackpot!

Rating:
Summary: Pie-in-the-Sky-on-Wye
Review: I was sure I would be disappointed in Sixpence House. Yes, I love books and visiting Hay-on-Wye has been a goal of mine for some twenty years. But writing about one's love of books is a tricky thing. It's like writing about your children. No one wants to read about them, regardless of how wonderful they are.

Paul Collins manages to write so well that it doesn't matter that his taste in books is entirely different from mine or from any other reader's. He seems to be interested in everything. He gleans curious tidbits from any book he happens to pick up and relates them in an entertaining way.

Collins and his wife and toddler son are trying to find a house to buy in Hay, the Town of Books, and his first book is about to be published. This gives him a chance to talk about the characters of Hay and about the publishing business from an author's point of view. I love his thumbnail explanation of how to decipher bookcovers and the importance of a book's title (the question remains, why did his publisher go with the deadly title of Banvard's Folly over his intriguing choices, The Man With N-Ray Eyes, or simply Loser?). Another read-out-loud episode is Collins's return to the U.S having lost his passport. Not exactly a warm welcome home.

Sixpence House was so enjoyable, I may have to read Banvard's Folly in spite of the dreadful title. Sure, Collins and his wife were crazy to think they could move to Hay, but he got a book out of it at least, and what a great story.

Rating:
Summary: "Books are the cellars of civilization."
Review: In "Sixpence House" author Paul Collins is living in San Francisco with his wife and small child when he hatches the hare-brained scheme to move to Hay-on-Wye--a small town in the Welsh countryside. Collins is the son of British immigrants, but he grew up in America and had spent several very enjoyable holidays, as an adult, in Hay-on-Wye. Many holidaymakers fall in love with their holiday homes, and many daydream of leading blissful lives in holiday locations. Collins and his family decided to do something about this daydream, and they actually waved goodbye to San Francisco and replanted themselves in Hay-on-Wye.

The idea was, of course, completely impractical. I knew the ending of the book before I even started reading. However, I was curious to read the author's experience. It is easy to understand why he was beguiled with the idea of living in Hay-on-Wye. It's a book lover's paradise--1500 inhabitants and forty bookshops. The author's strong opening chapter dwells on the curiosity of being a booklover, and what books mean to him. This chapter was exceptionally well done, and really went a long way to binding my interest with the book.

There were many parts of the book, however, that I found, quite frankly, annoying. For example, the author complains about shower pressure in British showers and also noted that British people have a habit of putting their children on leashes. While I can't argue with the author's observations, I do argue with his anecdotal interpretation of many of the cultural aspects to this book. Americans may enjoy it, but British people (and I'm one of them) may not. There are some experiences here that surpass cultural boundaries. For example, the author tries to buy an old house--400 years old or so--and then balks when he discovers the awful truth that the locals seem all too aware of. These sorts of re-told experiences did not annoy me, but the author's rambling style irritated me. The writer was really at his best when he kept in line and talked about books and bookshops.

One very interesting section of the book mentions "The Hay Poisoner" and describes a real-life murder case in Hay-on-Wye--a solicitor murdered his wife and then tried to bump off the town's only other solicitor. For those interested, the DVD "Dandelion Dead" is a fictionalized account of the murder--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: "Books are the cellars of civilization."
Review: In "Sixpence House" author Paul Collins is living in San Francisco with his wife and small child when he hatches the hare-brained scheme to move to Hay-on-Wye--a small town in the Welsh countryside. Collins is the son of British immigrants, but he grew up in America and had spent several very enjoyable holidays, as an adult, in Hay-on-Wye. Many holidaymakers fall in love with their holiday homes, and many daydream of leading blissful lives in holiday locations. Collins and his family decided to do something about this daydream, and they actually waved goodbye to San Francisco and replanted themselves in Hay-on-Wye.

The idea was, of course, completely impractical. I knew the ending of the book before I even started reading. However, I was curious to read the author's experience. It is easy to understand why he was beguiled with the idea of living in Hay-on-Wye. It's a book lover's paradise--1500 inhabitants and forty bookshops. The author's strong opening chapter dwells on the curiosity of being a booklover, and what books mean to him. This chapter was exceptionally well done, and really went a long way to binding my interest with the book.

There were many parts of the book, however, that I found, quite frankly, annoying. For example, the author complains about shower pressure in British showers and also noted that British people have a habit of putting their children on leashes. While I can't argue with the author's observations, I do argue with his anecdotal interpretation of many of the cultural aspects to this book. Americans may enjoy it, but British people (and I'm one of them) may not. There are some experiences here that surpass cultural boundaries. For example, the author tries to buy an old house--400 years old or so--and then balks when he discovers the awful truth that the locals seem all too aware of. These sorts of re-told experiences did not annoy me, but the author's rambling style irritated me. The writer was really at his best when he kept in line and talked about books and bookshops.

One very interesting section of the book mentions "The Hay Poisoner" and describes a real-life murder case in Hay-on-Wye--a solicitor murdered his wife and then tried to bump off the town's only other solicitor. For those interested, the DVD "Dandelion Dead" is a fictionalized account of the murder--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: travelogue and literary essays
Review: In the tradition of Rick Steves and Garrison Keillor, author Paul Collins is a kindly man, a family man with a blossoming career as a writer, and a desire to live in a booklover's dreamtown -- Hay-on-Wye in Wales. All does not proceed smoothly however. Nor does it proceed in a linear fashion. This is a book that tells the tale of a husband and wife and their child, and their hunt for a house in a town of books. But it also meanders, perhaps not uncoincidentally, like a bibliohunter loosed in a rambling old bookstore.

The book is friendly, casual and conversational in tone. There are many charming stories and interesting facts related as the author turns his attention to matters literary and otherwise. I learned a bit and laughed a bit, and look forward to rereading it when I someday go to Hay.

The book is vaguely dissatisfying because the author himself still seems out of focus, but he uses metaphors nicely and has some delightful sound bytes as well; for example, "The book trade does provide a certain shelter for those whose humors might ill-suit them for work elsewhere." (pg 140) That is just lovely, and as an American whose parents and brother are British, Collins can combine the two perspectives to good effect. He offers distinctions found among the newspapers of Britain, discusses the history, customs and people of the town, lays down a lovely riff on the unspoken code of book size and lettering, and relates amusing bibliohistory, such as columnist James Payn's 1893 advice: "When one hears of a publisher being shot by an author, it is well to have all the facts before us before expressing disapprobation."

The author obviously has genuine affection and passion for writing, which makes this a fun read.

Rating:
Summary: To Gazump or Gazund
Review: Paul Collins has written a book that is part memoir, part travelogue, and two parts documentary. "Sixpence House", (Lost In A Town Of Books)", ostensibly is a book about one writer's decision to relocate his family from Victorian San Francisco to a Welsh town of 1500 persons. Hay-on-Wye is the town and it easily could be the setting for a novel in any of the last five centuries. This piece of Wales has everything from the requisite castle with a self-proclaimed king, to over 40 sellers of antiquarian books.

What the author and his wife did not expect from this picturesque community was the possibility that when buying a house they would have to face arcane events such as gazumping and gazunding, and as buyers having no representation while sellers have no obligation to share the defects of their home. (How to say caveat emptor in Welsh?) A 500-year-old house is likely to have some faults as they imagine and find to their dismay. Even when in the 16th century apartment they are faced with rooms that are painfully small, where natural light is simply an idea, and events like a shower with water pressure are no more than a memory left some 3000 miles away.

In the midst of myriad daily adjustments the couple is attempting to raise their young child and the author is gallantly trying to finish his first book. Paul Collins gives readers a new view on the effort required to get published as well as the tasks of finding a title that is hopefully unfamiliar to readers, combating editors who wish to amend his writing, and even a paper shortage caused by the printing of 800 pages 5 million times. The latter represents the first edition of JK Rowlings's fourth book in the United States.

The village and the idea of making a new home amongst the residents gradually, yet steadily, changes from the romanticized idea many of us would create in our own minds, to encompass many of the same grinding realities creating a new home would present anywhere. One of the books charms is the historical arcanum that the author includes rather effortlessly during the tale. A walk past a cemetery invokes a short history of the watch, the early shapes associated with death that they took, and the rather prescient shapes of watch that Mary Queen Of Scot wore during her abbreviated life. The author also tells the story of an unusual explorer of London's sewers, and the time he took while underneath the royal household to break in to song, and the odd circumstance this may have presented to those living in the royal household.

Mr. Collins has written a book that is well worth your time, and likely to be several degrees different from many of the books you have read.

Rating:
Summary: *The* book for bibliomaniacal Anglophiles
Review: Paul Collins has written something like the perfect book for bibliomaniacal Anglophiles. *Sixpence House* is the story of his migration--with wife and infant son--from San Francisco to Hay-on-Wye, a village in the Welsh countryside with some 1500 inhabitants--and, remarkably, 40 bookstores. Hay is a picturesque town, with cobblestone streets and thatch-roofed houses and its own castle, a half-ruined edifice occupied by Hay's self-proclaimed king, who happens to be, as are so many of Hay's inhabitants, a bookseller. Collins and his family rent an apartment in town (his mailing address becomes, simply, The Apartment: it's that small a village) and live out of their suitcases and stroller while house hunting and book buying. The author also works part-time for the king in his bookstore, a place crammed with more musty volumes than the royal's workers can ever organize.

Collins' attempt to buy an old house in Hay--he toys with purchasing the eponymous Sixpence House, a lopsided former pub that threatens to be a money pit--merely provides the skeleton for the author's delightful, meandering narrative. It is at times hilarious, as when, for example, Collins describes his first book-reading, or rather, his pre-reading sojourn in the bathroom:

"There's nowhere dry for me to put my papers down, so I have to tuck my papers under my chin while I pee, which works till--chiff--into the toilet, and I grab, and recoil, then grab again--and I have saved my manuscript, the thing I am still hoping to read from this evening, except for the first page, which is not just soaked, it is soaked with urine. I stand alone in the bathroom, horrified. I do not have another copy with me. But, what they do have here is--a hand dryer. And so there I stand, drying off my masterpiece over the ineffectual vent. It takes a long time. Someone finally walks in on my performance art, and there I am, drying my pee-soaked words--Hello, top of the evening to you. Finally I give up and throw the whole thing out."

In addition to urine-soaked manuscripts, there are recycled gravestones to read about, and near poisonous glasses of cider, and lyrical vomiting, and scheming Lords, and, everywhere, a bibliophile's revelry in old books. Collins, moreover, can write. Each page offers some beautifully or wittily phrased nugget for the reader to savor. (On the idea "that a character can develop a will of his own and 'take over a book,'" Collins writes: "A character can no more take over your novel than an eggplant and a jar of cumin can take over your kitchen.") One can lament only that the book is not twice as long.

(Actually, one can lament something else, but *read no further* if you have not either read or written the book: I was convinced that the author would end up buying Sixpence House and living out an idyllic, writerly life among the eccentrics of Hay. Indeed, though all indications suggested otherwise, I was sure the last chapter would end with either Paul or his wife coming to his or her senses and announcing that, money be damned, they wanted that house! But, it didn't happen. The book ended well, tidily, that nice bit with the problematic passport and the affirmation of Paul's status, but I was unaccountably heartsick about it.)

The book-mom's rating: A