My bookshelves present a past life. If I were to do a census of my shelves I already know what the result would be. Volumes upon volumes of men. My bookshelves embarrass me now. A couple of years ago my only criteria for buying a book was whether the blurb sounded good or not.

I’d walk into bookshops and wait for something to catch my eye. More likely than not I’d end up buying something from those sales tables, you know the ones that you practically have to navigate through in Waterstones or Easons?

The fact that my bookshelves are the literary equivalent of The LAD Bible’s userbase is mostly my own fault, but there must have been other factors. This got me thinking about those tables. All three of Cork’s major bookshops use them, Waterstones, Easons and Vibes and Scribes.

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