If you
are fond of books you simply must visit Ireland. Ireland had produced countless
writers and poets and because of this, there are a lot of bookshops. Galway is
a good place to start at. No matter what you are looking for, you will find it
in one of the bookstores in Galway. The two biggest bookshops for new books are
Dubray Books and Easons, both situated in the city centre (Shop Street). There
you will find all kind of popular and recent books. But I prefer the second-hand
bookshops.
Charlie Byrne’s is one such second-hand bookshop, situated in
the heart of the city (Middle Street). As soon as you enter the door, you will forget
all your troubles. Time slows down when you see the amazing amount of books;
you smell them and feel the warm atmosphere. They stock over 100,000 books
ranging from popular fiction to local and national history and they have recent
published titles by local authors. Every Saturday at 11am is ‘story time’,
where someone will read a story, which is especially fun for younger children.
Once in awhile there will be a special event for a book release.
Another,
even bigger shop is Kenny’s Bookshop
& Art gallery, situated just outside the city centre (Liosbaun Retail
Park, Tuam Road). This is a huge shop with over half a million new and second-hand
books in stock. If you are a real bookworm, you can spend a whole day in this
shop. Besides the regular books, they also stock rare and antiquarian books.
And if you need a break from the books, you can take a look in the art gallery,
where they exhibit contemporary Irish art.
If you
want to stay abreast of what is being published in Ireland, you must join the
bookclub. They will select a package of books of your interest and they will
send it to you (oversea is not a problem). You can choose your own timeframe
and budget and they will select the books for you.
There
are not enough words to explain how great you will feel if you enter one of
these shops. So go and find out yourself!
Petra Van Ham
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