Where to stay: Capella Sydney is within easy reach of the festival venues—Carriageworks, Sydney Town Hall, and City Recital Hall—and a quick stroll from the famed Sydney Writers Walk at Circular Quay. The century-old structure that houses this year-old hotel was once Australia’s Department of Education, where a spirit of storytelling persists: Among other programs on offer is the Illi Langi Aboriginal Dreaming Tour with the iconic local elder Aunty Margaret.
The Jaipur Literature Festival
January 30-February 3, 2025
Another of the major stops on the international bibliophile circuit, this festival has come to be known as “the greatest literary show on earth,” or “the least dry, the most carnival-like,” in the words of Pico Iyer, whose fellow JLF alums include Oprah and the Dalai Lama. That the entire spectacle (book talks, cinema, music, dance and a 450,000-person international audience) is set against the drama of Rajasthan’s fabled Pink City certainly doesn’t hurt. And while most of the events take place at the Hotel Clarks Amer, there are also guided tours of the surrounding landmarks and an onsite “buzzaar” where local artisanry is sold. Check the festival’s website closer to the date for the first of the 2025 author announcements.
Where to stay: Taj Rambagh Palace Jaipur, built for the local Maharaja in 1835, now attracts literary royalty and other festival goers to the opulent interiors and lush grounds of this former hunting lodge.
The Hay Festival
May 23-June 2
Just 47 years ago, the lone used bookseller in Hay-on-Wye proclaimed this small Welsh market town an independent micro-state and himself its sovereign ruler: King Richard Coeur de Livre. Officially known as Richard Booth, the man clearly knew the power of a good publicity stunt. With media coverage and time, his “kingdom” over the border from the English cathedral town of Hereford came to be known as Britain’s “town of books,” where dozens of secondhand sellers began to flourish, open-air bookshelves soon lined the alleys and lanes, and—in 1988—the Hay Festival debuted. In short order, the likes of Arthur Miller and Salman Rushdie showed up, and by 2001, Bill Clinton had famously declared the festival “the Woodstock of the Mind.”
