The small town of Hay, on the River Wye, sits on the border between England and Wales. You can 1 reach it on small country roads since the transport is not developed so fast there.
The town was a 2 place until 1961. That year a local man called Richard Booth came back from a trip to the USA with a lot of second-hand books. He bought the town's old fire station and changed it into a shop to sell them. For the next ten years, he bought more empty shops and made them into bookshops, too.3 Hay became the world's first "book town".
With the money he made, Booth bought the town's old castle. On April Fool's Day in 1977, he declared(宣布)himself "king" and said the place was now an independent 4 !His horse was the head of the government, and he even gave people passports. Some local people thought he was a little mad.
He wasn't crazy at all, and the 5 made more people come to Hay to buy second-hand books. By the 1980s there were a large number of books on sale, on 15km of shelves in over 30 bookshops.
Then in 1988 aliterature(文学)festival began. Writers came to 6 about their new books, along with scientists, politicians and even the President of the USA!
The "king" is old now, but he still likes selling books and now there are book towns in many different countries in Europe. Not bad for something that started in a small town of 1300 people.
