Several months ago, before we even began planning our recent UK trip, I saw a short segment on a travel show about the town of Hay-on-Wye. Hay-on-Wye is located in the Brecon Beacons National Park and is in Wales, sharing a close border with England. The town looked beautiful on the show, but what really caught my attention, is that Hay-on-Wye is referred to as "The Town of Books".

I love books!

LOVE THEM!

Clearly, this town was calling my name.

Dan was a good sport and planned our road trip so that we could have a night-stop in Hay-on-Wye, allowing me to live my dream of visiting a whole town devoted to reading.

Hay-on-Wye takes books very serious. Kindles are banned. I'm not sure if this is a real ban, but the anti-ereader sentiment is heavily enforced.

Another fun fact, in 1977 a local bookseller, Richard Booth, decided to declare Hay-on-Wye a Kingdom and make himself the king. The whole "Kingdom" bit stuck around. Hay-on-Wye is delightfully quirky.

My favorite bookshop with an anti-Kindle message goes to the Murder and Mayhem store.

Admittedly, I discreetly broke the ban by spending the afternoon reading on my Kindle in our hotel lounge. I was nearly done with Alissa Nutting's Tampa and just needed to know how it was going to end. I'm sure that Hay-on-Wye also has a ban on smut books, so my choice in "literature" was likely doubly insulting.

Bookstore are absolutely everywhere. One of favorites was located in a castle. Actually, the castle had more than one book store. I felt like there was a surprise around every corner.

The lower level of the castle has a covered outdoor book case with an honor system for payment.

We walked up stone steps to explore the ruins.

At the top, we peeked around a corner...

and found more books!!!!

We spent several hours walking around and exploring the bookstores. Unfortunately, I have a rather severe allergy to dust and mold, which prevents me from spending too much time in used bookstores and libraries. I know, it's crazy. What book lover avoids libraries? It killed me to not be able to spend more than a few minutes in each store. On the upside, I didn't buy a single book to add to my enormous to-be-read pile.

Some of the stores were really cool.

I took a bunch of pictures of non-book related things in the town. Hay-on-Wye has beautiful old churches and a war memorial statue.

After walking around the town, we went down a path to explore walking trails on the bank of the River Wye.

Hay-on-Wye is a beautiful small town with a ton of character. if you love books, this is a must-visit destination!

I kicked off my UK vacation with Alissa Nutting's controversial novel Tampa about a female pedophile.

Perfect vacation read, right?

Tampa first came on my radar a few months ago, when early reviews on Nutting's novel began to hit various publications. Admittedly, I was drawn to it due to the hype regarding the controversial subject matter.

Tampa is narrated by Celeste, a junior high English teacher in her mid-twenties, who fantasizes about her male students. Celeste is a cold and calculating predator, who spends much of her time concocting elaborate lies and manipulations in efforts to create and conceal her sexual conquests.

I finished this book a few weeks ago and am still not sure what to make of it. It's an uncomfortable book to read. However, it should be uncomfortable. Nutting nailed it.

The story comes on strong in the first quarter. A bit too strong and it is a bit of a turn off. It's just so over the top salacious and graphic with regard to Celeste's fantasies, that it felt like Nutting was trying to push the envelope. The subject matter is enough and Nutting could have been a lot less overt without compromising the story.

I'm not the slightest bit prudish, but I was beet red while reading Tampa on my flight to London.

I think that a lot of readers might be turned off with the first few chapters, which is a shame, because once the story really picks up the pace, it was a compelling read. It shifted from a smut book to a solid work of modern fiction.

Rare is the story that manages to grab my attention without endearing me to any of the characters. There are zero likable characters in Tampa. Nutting does a wonderful job of making the reader embrace Celeste's narrative. Celeste is obviously a very biased and unreliable narrator, but you kind of go along with her thought process and dislike the other characters that Celeste dislikes. You sort of root for her.

It's similar to Nabokov's Humbert Humbert in Lolita. In both stories the authors have managed to get the reader to push past the taboos and to go along for the ride. I never liked Celeste, but somehow the people that she loathes (coworkers, parents, her husband) come across as a little worse. Nutting did a solid job, because there is no way that any reader could actually like Celeste and this is the only way to make her come across as even a little bit likable.

This novel isn't for everyone. As squirmy as it was to read, overall, I enjoyed it and I look forward to reading other novels by Nutting. She is a talented writer.

UK August- October 2013- Hay-on-Wye

Book Review- Alissa Nutting's Tampa