Books, books everywhere...

While in Welsh borders this summer, Hay-on-Wye seemed like the ideal day trip for a girl whose dream as a child was to have a library on the scale of the one in Beauty and the Beast (who wouldn't love a man, or even a beast, who loved books that much?) So in a town full of new and secondhand books, how easy is it to find a book worth reading?
Tramping through over 20 bookshops in a day, I was faced with shelves and shelves of them, some in dusty basements where anyone taller than me would bump their head on the light fittings and others in historic buildings with beautiful oak bookcases with chairs and coffee to make you want to linger all day.
But to find something new is always a challenge because it defies categorisation. I would start with books on environmental concerns, but wonder how many would truly illuminate the issues in a way that helped me change them, rather than making me feel either guilty or filled with righteous anger. I have no shortage of books at home that will tell me about climate change and loss of biodiversity, but often I find these very "worthy" and yes, even a bit dull. I want to be part of solving problems not just shouting about them. The words of Ecclesiastes seem more apt than ever:

"Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out."

Then I would progress to the transport aisle, where I would be reminded forcefully that I'm not a typical railway enthusiast longing for the old days of steam (ie for most folks who volunteer on heritage railways, it's all about childhood nostalgia, which is all at least 20 years before my time). I'm much more interested in the social history of how railways changed us and how engineers can shape cities and even whole countries even now with better public transport. Such books are, alas, hard to find (although The Last Journey of William Huskisson is well worth a read).
But ultimately, making a difference is all about people. So the one book I did buy in Hay was the story of Malala, the schoolgirl campaigner who almost paid with her life for the right for girls like her in rural Pakistan to learn to read and write. She is now a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and testament to the real power of books to change the world!