It is the largest bookshop in town, but the secondhand books in there are very reasonably priced. We were there on a Saturday, and all the bookshops seemed to have the same books in them, except the crime bookshop. I think just through volume of books there is every chance of finding a gem that you haven't found elsewhere. I got The Young Steamship Officer by J Lennox Kerr, which told me a lot about Merchant Seamanship before WW2. There was a whole world there that seems to have been lost to the container ships.
As for cheap bookfairs... no I don't go to them, and they are usually very poor. I would like to go to Hay when the book festivals are on. It made me laugh the above poster who said Richard Ford would have been a draw at a bookfair. Famous for writing, like Jonathan Frantzen, its just that no-one I've ever met actually enjoys their books. For me the finest book I've ever read is 'We the Drowned.' the writer isn't famous though, or indeed a writer in English. The translator did a bang up job on that one.
