Rating: 
Summary: Don't have a fireplace? Build one & curl up with this book.
Review: This is not a perfect book. It will not spur on a generation to greatness nor will ride high atop the bestsellers list with a movie deal in the works. No, this is the type of book that simply flows over you, like a warm bath on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Sadly, it's probably doomed to sit on the dusty shelves of Hay on Wye, a small Welsh town that has come to base it's economy on the sale of used and mostly forgotten books. American Paul Collins works in one of the around 40 book shops there and flirts with the idea of settling his young family in this hamlet he has come to love.
If you are a bibliophile or an Anglophile, it's a definate must read. If you are neither of the above...sadly, you probably won't find the book as charming. Collins tends to get a little long winded on some of the forgotten books he shares with us. Also he never delves deeper into the man responsible for this bookish town, a crazy like a fox eccentric named Richard Booth. We do get to know Booth as well as the town of Hay but in the end it's all to brief and little is explored beyond the initial surface.
Rating: 
Summary: Welsh Wonderland
Review: This is the sort of delightful surprise that only comes around once in a blue moon. The book starts off seeming like a standard travel narrative, but soon spins off into a sort of comical and fascinating ramble through--among other things--old books, family, ancient houses, new books, pastries, quiz shows, parliament, dead dogs floating down the Thames...I could go on. Collins, like all good anglophiles, embraces Britain even when he's skewering it. All in all, a rare and charming oddball of a book.
Rating:
Summary: Nice story - good balance
Review: This was the 1st book I've read by Collins. Very good book for avid readers. If you don't like books, you won't like this book. I felt like I was along with him on his journey for a home in Hay-on-Wye. I especially enjoyed his "side journeys" into different topics. In a way, after reading this book, I felt like I had read about 50 books. Fun book - I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes books, period.
Rating:
Summary: A Book Lover's Book
Review: What an interesting little memoir! Paul Collins is a humorous writer who knows how to keep the laughs understated. Odd bits of trivia pop up every page or two as Collins and family move to the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye--the town of books. With 1,500 people, Hay-on-Wye has 40 bookstores and seems like just the place for Collins and his also-an-author wife to raise their new son. So they leave San Francisco and its high rents and fast-paced life behind, and soon they're trying to buy a house in Hay-on-Wye, only to find that every house for sale is either a new-built cookie-cutter or requires complete gutting because it's over 400 years old.
All of this sounds banal, but it isn't--in the hands of Collins it's a happy little tale that you can't help but enjoy. The author's struggles to conjure up a title for his first book, about notable failures, coincide with working in a burned-out castle where ancient books arrive in cargo containers and are sorted and re-sorted for no apparent purpose, and this dovetails with Collins' ill-formed notion that he can become a member of the House of Lords. (The book, by the way, ends up being called "Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World," and it is also well worth reading.)
None of this description does this book justice. It's the kind of book that you can read before bed; you won't kill yourself trying to finish it, because it breaks up nicely, and you'll fall asleep content and at peace.
Collins works with Dave Eggers, he of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" fame, and his most recent book, "Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism," carries the story started in this memoir further, so I'm sure we'll hear more from him in the future. For now, pick up "Sixpence House." You won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not lost, not in a town of books, not ever...
Review: When I finished Paul Collins' book "Sixpence House" I had a similar feeling as to when I read "The absence of nectar", by Kathy Hepinstall. Although the stories have nothing in common (they're not even in the same genre for the matter), the feeling of disappointment I experienced was the same. Although I think in Collins' case is even stronger, because of the expectations I had on the book. My shrink - yes, I had one! - once told me that expectations are a bad thing. Why? Because of what happens when things don't turn up as expected. Usually a strong feeling of desolation creeps in. And that is exactly what happened to me with "Sixpence House". Let me just say, it is not a bad book. It's not badly written either - although the prose could use some help here and there. It's just not a narrative of someone "lost in a town of books", as the subtitle proclaims. First of all, it's not about the old abandoned pub that bears the same name in Hay-on-Wye. True, the author and his wife attempt to buy it while house-hunting there, but this occurs only in one chapter - rather late in the book, I must say. Secondly, it's not a book about being lost in this famous booktown either. As he points out several times, Collins had been there before as a tourist (that's what prompted him to choose Hay as his next area of residence), and as a matter of fact he knows his way around the town very well. It appears to be, however, the story of someone at a loss with what to do with his life - Collins doesn't seem to have a straight job, except for the proofreading of his first book; and at a loss with his own thoughts. Only about half the book is about the famous Welsh town and its characters. The other half... well, it's hard to say what it's about or why it's been included in the book in the first place; to the point that I found Collins' affinity for neologisms takes over him, as he himself states: "I am very good at coining neologisms when free plane tickets are involved." (Page 10); and thus making you wander how much of his appreciations are not of his own invention. Collins keeps on reminiscing about almost anything that comes to his mind; which would be fine, but then the title of the book should have been something like "Reminiscences of my life during my stay in Hay-on-Wye", or something of the sort. What really disappointed me to its fullest was the end. I'm not going to give it away out of sheer literary etiquette, but I'll just say that if I had been blessed with the possibility of moving to Wales, well... As the strong fan that I am of everything Welsh and, as a typical bibliophile, as fascinated as I feel about the concept of the "booktown", I was hoping for a story about IT, with the author's impressions yes; but nevertheless a story about Hay-on-Wye, its people and its history. Instead, this book sounds like the kind of propaganda written by the typical son of British immigrants who favors the American way of life for no other reason than the fact that it is in a different continent where it does not rain as much. If you want to find out about this wonderful town, I would recommend Richard Booth's book "My Kingdom of Books". Even though it's now out of print, it will make for more enjoyable, focused reading.
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