I shall tell you a secret. Whenever in Dublin, I actually prefer browsing through bookstores to bumming down at a public house for a piece of steak washed down with a stout. And truly, only in Ireland does Guinness Stout taste like it should.
No, I cannot keep away from Irish bookstores. The range is amazing, and as in London, the shop stretches from floor to floor. But what gives me reason to pause and contemplate is that they always have huge central sections that are solely dedicated to Irish literature. This literature can be academic, covering Ireland’s painful yet colourful history; or biographical, studying the lives of the Emerald Isle’s many heroes and villains. Or it can be fiction, or poetry.
Now, the literary bent of the Irish is legendary, their authors having filled the roll call of the Nobel Prize Committee ever since it began giving out prizes 110 years ago.
