All my dreams came true: I was allowed to get whatever I wanted from a bookshop

The stars aligned for me recently. Firstly, my boyfriend moved to Japan (sad) and, secondly, he was recently on the judging panel of the Children’s Books Ireland annual competition. 

After reading over 100 children’s books over the course of a year, he was rewarded with an extremely generous book voucher. (NB he had no idea he would get a voucher at the end; he volunteered because he is truly passionate about children's lit.) The day before his flight from Dublin airport, he surprised me by taking me to my favourite bookshop in Dublin, ‘Books Upstairs’ and told me I could get whatever I wanted.

I looked at him doubtfully; did he know what he was promising? The depths of desire for buying books is truly dizzying.

But clearly, he was feeling a tad guilty about swanning off to another continent for a year, so he meant what he said.

Where to even begin?

Lately I’ve been really enjoying the Book Club segment of The Irish Times’ Women’s Podcast and all of the women had glowing reviews of ‘Heart the Lover’ by Lily King. Apparently it’s a campus novel set in the 1980s and is essentially a love story spanning decades, full of literary allusions, sign me up!

I also decided to get ahead of myself and pick up the Irish Times Women’s Podcast book club’s next pick, which is Mary Costello’s new book, ‘A Beautiful Loan’. Also set in the 1980s and also focusing on an intense love story…clearly the women on the podcast have a type!

Feeling satisfied that I was up to date on the current book obsessions, I knew exactly where I was headed next: the essays section. I adore a collection of essays and I think creative non-fiction is so underrated. Joan Didion is one of my favourite writers so I bought ‘The White Album’ because I found out recently that it's Greta Gerwig's favourite book. I read Slouching Towards Bethlehem when I was 19, and it still influences my writing today. I’ve also watched the documentary made by her nephew, ‘The Centre Will Not Hold’, more times than I care to admit.

Having got the heavy hitters out of the way, it was time to do a bit of browsing. I picked up ‘The Torrents of Spring’ by Ernest Hemingway because I love ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, but haven't read anything else by Hemingway. The day I visited Books Upstairs was the first sunny day in over 50 days in Ireland, so I also wanted to get something that would put me in a spring mood. I was also intrigued by this short novel because Hemingway wrote while working as a local journalist!

Contrary to what this article would have you believe, I actually don’t usually buy books. I mostly get them from the library (shout out to Waterford library, they have such an amazing collection) or I borrow them from friends and family. In my final year of college, my dissertation supervisor recommended I read Lorrie Moore’s ‘Birds of America’, and this little collection of short stories written in the late 1990s completely blew me away. My supervisor said that her work reminded him of my own, which was such an honour. At the time I borrowed the book from the library, but I decided to buy a copy for sentimental reasons.

Finally, I decided I still needed one last fix. A book I felt I couldn’t leave the shop without was ‘On Beauty’ by Zadie Smith. It’s been mentioned on a few panel discussions by very intelligent people whom I admire. I honestly cannot believe that ‘White Teeth’ was Smith’s debut novel; it is literally a perfect book. I also bought N-W for €5 in Vibes & Scribes in Cork. In the summer of 2024, when everyone else was having a ‘Brat’ summer, I was having a Zadie Smith summer. ‘On Beauty’ has been described as a "transatlantic comic saga" and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize – enough said.

My boyfriend went crazy and splashed out on a single book for himself – I know, he’s a big spender. He bought a collection of Brendan Behan’s plays – I guess he needs a break from novels.

Amazingly, there is still money left on the book token voucher, and Leo can’t spend it in Japan, so it's up to me to assume the heavy burden of buying books. Let me know if you have any recommendations for what I should buy!