Pen'rallt Gallery Bookshop first opened on 24 May 2011, a year after we moved to Machynlleth from Nottingham. Diane is originally from Essex and Geoff from Aberdare, South Wales, and now the shop is both our home and our business. We began with only second-hand books, but soon added new books. We're now members of The Booksellers' Association and sell a carefully selected range of titles across a wide range of subjects and specialist areas. We don’t run a car, carrying out most of our second-hand bookbuying by public transport, aiming to be carbon neutral.

We are supported by a growing customer base - local book-lovers and summer visitors, as well as support from independent and major publishers, other supportive booksellers, the Welsh Books Council, specialist wholesalers and many authors and writers who have contributed to our success. The bookshop was named as one of the best 12 Indie bookshops in UK, has been Yale University Press Bookshop of the Month, features in Bookshop Tours of Britain (published by Fairlight) and most recently (December 2023) appeared in a feature in The Observer Sunday Magazine and The Guardian online.

We are located on the road into Machynlleth from the railway station, just a few doors from MOMA Wales, a major art gallery. Both of these are important connections for us. The bookshop has three rooms with level access throughout. The rooms have a regular display of works as a gallery space as well as books for sale and browsing. We are open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday from 10.00 to 5.00 and Saturday from 10.00 until 4.30.

We also stock a selection of greetings cards, including the very popular range provided by Candlestick Press in Nottingham: beautiful booklets of poetry, on a wide variety of themes, that can be posted for the price of a first class letter.