I'm still in Ireland, where I've been on a rather extended birthday-trip-come-summer-holiday since last Thursday evening. We've been dividing our time between Dublin and County Wexford, dodging the rain showers, thunderstorms and wet weather. (If this is summer in Ireland, I hate to think what winter is like!)
On Tuesday we did a bit of sightseeing around Dublin town, and paid a visit to Hodges Figgis, which I believe is the biggest bookstore in Ireland (although I'm happy to be corrected, if that's no longer the case). It is also the oldest, having been founded in 1768, although it has moved from its original location and is now situated on Dawson Street.
In fact, anyone who has read James Joyce's Ulysses may recall that the bookstore gets namechecked, although I don't think Joyce is referring to the present location. (Joyce also namechecks the Davy Byrnes pub, which is around the corner. I quite enjoyed drinking a quiet pint at the same bar at which Leopold Bloom stops for a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of wine. There's a few pics of Joyce up on the wall as a tribute.)
Sadly, Hodges Figgis is no longer independent, because it was bought by HMV (which also owns Waterstone's -- there's a branch across the road) a few years back, but it's still decked out in the Hodges Figgis green and gold livery and has a distinctive feel and flavour of its own. There are no "3 for 2" tables here, but piles and piles of books on floors and tables at €3.99 and €4.99, which is effectively half-price.
The shop is spread across three floors (according to the Dublin tourism website, it houses 1.5 million books!) but I kept to the ground floor, and even then I concentrated pretty much exclusively on the Irish literature section. Honestly, as someone who has a penchant for Irish fiction, it was like discovering a little slice of heaven. I'm still raving about it days later.
Basically, one very long wall was crammed floor to ceiling with everything from Samuel Beckett to Oscar Wilde. And for the first time ever I saw all of Jennifer Johnston's titles nestling up against one another -- generally the book stores I frequent only ever stock her latest offering, if you're lucky.
Conscious that I had to get everything home in a suitcase, I restricted myself to five books, but if I lived in Dublin I'd probably have walked out with a dozen more. It was just blissful working my way through the shelves, rediscovering books I'd already read, and finding ones I'd never heard of.
In the end I plumped for:
Sebastian Barry's debut novel Annie Dunne
Hugo Hamilton's Disguise
Aidan Higgins' Langrishe Go Down
Nuala O'Faolian's memoir Are You Somebody?
Orna Ross' A Dance in Time.
If you want to visit, the store is located at 56-58 Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. It doesn't have a website.
