Anyone who doubts the vitality of the written word or the viability of independent bookstores should take a trip to Ireland. I just got back and while I saw my share of ruined castles and crumbling monasteries, what really hit me was the real reverence the Irish seem to have for books. Certainly, they’ve produced their share of pretty famous authors–Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett and–something I didn’t know–Bram Stoker. You can’t go anywhere (in Dublin, at any rate) without running into some reference to some author–or a bookstore. In Kilkenny, for example, I counted three independents within three blocks, and each had its distinctive personality. What was more, there were real people there and two were hosting readings–on a weekday night! Both venues were packed.
I’m not sure what this means, other than there are a lot of Irish folks out there who enjoy reading and appreciate the aesthetics of real books. (That was another thing I noticed: not a lot of readers floating around, even in London where I spent a couple days. I had the only one I saw on both legs of my trip, and I didn’t see a single bookstore hawking a single reader. Now, to be fair, I didn’t see a single Barnes & Noble or Borders either.) But given the vitality of those stores–to a tourist’s eye, anyway–and the real sense of pride with which the Irish seem to treat their writers (there’s even a Writers’ Museum in Dublin–not a fancy affair, but that it’s even there was pretty interesting), the book–as a physical entity–ain’t going away just yet.
For an interesting take on readers from two writers, check out this article in the New York Times.
Currently reading No Doors, No Windows by Joe Schreiber (If you’ve never read any of Schreiber’s horror novels, you’re missing a real treat. Schreiber’s an author who knows how to maintain a breakneck pace, something I don’t often run across in horror novels, per se.)
