A Different View with Dave O\u2019Connell<\/p>\n
There are overflowing racks outside the actual door of Charlie Byrne\u2019s fantastic emporium in the Cornstore that are completely devoted to second-hand books \u2013 everything from well-read paperbacks to never-read, mint condition gems.<\/p>\n
There are loads of second-hand books inside the shop as well of course, alongside all the latest releases, best sellers, local history tomes, and just about anything you\u2019d ever imagine getting your hands on to read.<\/p>\n
But the beauty of the second-hand option is that it\u2019s a library service of sorts, in that you can trade your old books for someone else\u2019s old books \u2013 and obviously, unlike a library, you can keep whatever old books you acquire.<\/p>\n
You can trade your old books, but only for store credit which in turn just applies to those second-hand books others have also traded in.<\/p>\n
Charlie Byrne\u2019s isn\u2019t unique in buying and selling old books, of course, but it\u2019s the whole ethos of the shop and staff that makes it such a magnet, not just for Galway book lovers but for those from across the country and beyond.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a similar experience to be had at your local library even if the range and depth wouldn\u2019t match the choice on offer in Charlie\u2019s \u2013 or indeed in Kenny\u2019s world of wonderful books in Liosb\u00e1n \u2013 and it\u2019s something that the tablet or the Kindle will never replicate.<\/p>\n
The beauty of libraries these days is that they\u2019re a million miles from the libraries of our youth; they are still quieter spaces, but they no longer have the air of a convent housing a contemplative order of nuns.<\/p>\n
There are book clubs, reading groups, children\u2019s sessions, talks, workshops, exhibitions \u2013 a million way that wonderfully enthusiastic staff have of encouraging others to share their love of books.<\/p>\n
And these books are free to borrow \u2013 indeed you don\u2019t even have to go into the library to borrow their books because, through Borrow Box, they all have a vast amount of new, old and classic books available to rent in digital format.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Different View with Dave O\u2019Connell There are overflowing racks outside the actual door of Charlie Byrne\u2019s fantastic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[31847,288,6873,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-42373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-a-different-view","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-connacht-tribune","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}