By Emma Ward
As a book lover, I spend a lot of time exploring bookstores around Galway, but I should mention that I am a wheelchair user so this is a major factor in where I buy my books. One of my favourite ones is Dubray Books located down shop street. I find myself to keep going back there to buy books because they are so accessible for people like me. I conducted an interview with Dubray on why they are one of the best book shops in Galway.
SIN interviewed Réiltín; who coincidently is the same person I always go to so I was looking forward to her response; and asked Réiltín what would be Dubray Books’ bestselling genre, and she told me that general fiction and, surprisingly to me, sci-fi is their most popular genres. She saysthere isn’t a bestselling genre at any consistent time as it changes weekly/monthly and it just depends on what the newest trend would be.
BookTok is a major selling point for them right now as it gives people suggestions on what to read; Colleen Hoover is massive at the moment and Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reed is huge because of the TV show that came out recently. It just depends on what is happening in the world or the media right now that affects what the bestselling is right now.
I asked her what makes their bookshop unique: she explained that a lot of people have said they like the atmosphere in the bookshop and they like the staff recommendations because it gives more of a personal feel to the book.
She says: “We get a lot of people come in asking for recommendations and we love giving them, we love talking about books all the time. I think this is what makes our shop unique because there’s more of a personal feel and people can come to talk about books all day.”
I also asked if the store has any book clubs. They don’t, but they do have an online blog that staff members can write on or they sometimes get authors to write on it. This is good if a customer is looking for recommendations online and they also have the ‘staff recommended reads of the month’ which includes three non-fiction, three kids, three teen, and three general fiction books.
Lastly, I asked what would be the age demographic for the store and was told that they don’t keep track of the age demographic because there isn’t a specific age group. There’s a wide variety of ages who come in, but BookTok has had an influence on the younger people.
