Plane prose

LOOK, that'll do ya", said the red faced woman slapping a grisly book viciously at her husband's chest. "I don't give a feck whether it's the one that eejit at work was tellin' you about, you better take it because I'm goin' to murder you or that child.

The woman looked fearsome, the man and the child relatively harmless, pathetic, victims really of this hysterical harridan with the big hair, black and white flowery leggings and white high heels.

For about 20 minutes, the defenceless adult male had been grimacing at the "Just Published" paperbacks, screwing up his nose, chomping at his gums, making horrible sucking noises through his teeth, periodically lunging at books like The Web ("a horrific web of intrigue and abasement") and The One That Got Away (SAS writer as swashbuckling hero, the cover depicting a desperado with an enormous gun).

The harridan, meanwhile, was flicking gently, dewy eyed, thoughtfully, through Sky ("a woman's search for herself and the truth of love"), Forbidden Places ("about love and marriage, families and secrets") and Lightning ("a family thrust into uncertainty").

Listen, I don't know what it all means either. The fact is that these two people were glaring at the exact same shelves but went straight for those books like heat seeking missiles locking onto their target. Does the adult male want to be the desperado with the enormous gun, a figure of menace and explosive action? Is the adult female crazed with searching for the truth of love etc? Anyone still cursed with optimism about the gender issue should try lingering for a few hours on a Saturday night at an airport bookshop. How in God's name, they'll wonder, do the two genders ever manage to occupy the same planet, never mind the same room?

As for the child (11-ish).

Within three minutes, he had surfaced with a lorry load of Goosebumps books ("teenage horror if you don't mind as if the target market didn't already fully represent the genre in the flesh). If nothing else, it proves that Hughes & Hughes, who run the airport book shops, know their market.

Not for nothing are the fat paperbacks with the gold embossed titles and pictures of broody women with big hats called "airport reads". It's a publishing phenomenon all to itself and explains why all four Hughes' & Hughes airport shops are open from 6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, 364 days a years and why their duty free shop eager to facilitate the weekend swarm of charter flights stays open through Saturday night to 3 a.m. on Sunday morning.

The reasons are as clear as the Mallorquin skies: a) there's a captive market nine million passengers will shuffle through Dublin Airport this year: b) entire jumbo loads of them will be resort bound, looking for reading matter to knock the boredom out of sunbathing: c) they want a read that's light in weight and content, as well as cheap and disposable because it probably won't make the return trip, and: d) they want bookshelves stacked with instantly recognisable names to allow for quick getaways. So it's hardly surprising that at this time of year, popular fiction accounts for more than 50 per cent of book sales at Dublin Airport.

Turn your nose up if you like, but human nature will always be with us (unless the relative purveyors of menace and explosive action among us finally do for us all) and anyway, aren't holidays all about unwinding and escaping? It's hardly Hughes & Hughes' fault that we choose to do this, not by immersing ourselves in sublime poetry or the latest Thomas Mann biography but by fantasising about being superfit, lantern jawed mavericks with laconic wit and enormous guns, or Donna Karan clad, six foot sex kittens of substance. Yep, they sure know their market, do Hughes & Hughes, both retail and wholesale.

Every January, says Liam Hughes, manager of the four airport shops, the company whittles the publishers' lists down to three "highlights" a month in the popular fiction year. These titles make bit up there through much promotional promise from the publishers, promotional spade work by the author and the instincts of Hughes and Hughes. They are then destined for the sort of shelf exposure a publisher would kill for (or at least engage in a little horrific intrigue and abasement For).

So achingly desirable is this exposure that airport booksellers can sometimes scoop the cream of popular fiction not only in 5p, discounted "airport editions" but also get to stock them well ahead of their non-airport rivals. This month Dublin Airport has a prime example in the shape of Maeve Binchy's new novel, Evening Class. For a whole month, says Liam Hughes with triumphant glee, Hughes & Hughes has her all to themselves and selling for only £9.99 (as opposed to £16.99 for the regular edition coming out next month).

THE downside of all this (especially if you're a new writer) is that clearly, airport shops don't take many risks airport customers rarely browse and don't, as a rule, reward risk takers so Liam Hughes can predict with a rueful accuracy what those same shelves will hold this time 12 months. Basically, it amounts to taking the current hardback fiction bestsellers and awaiting their next incarnation as 1997's paperback bestsellers.

But H&H try, nonetheless, to be supportive towards new Irish writers such as Mary McCarthy whose new novel Remember Me is prominently displayed. Mean while, given the fact that these are airport shops, maps and travel books must be given substantial amounts of space and there is that whole other branch of the market, the tourist American, German, French, British etc. to be accommodated.

The John Hinde book of photography, An Irish Moment, is a consistent seller to this niche as well as books on the Celts and Irish myths and legends. As, oddly enough, are books on aviation. Doesn't anyone else find it a mite disconcerting to be at an airport, outward bound, only to spot a book called Be a Better Pilot: Making the Right Decision.

Tip of the week from a canny flyer by all means, buy your books "landside" (that's before you head into security and the duty free) if you're outward bound. There's no VAT on them. But there is a whopping 21 per cent on magazines which you can save by waiting to buy them in the duty free shop on your way through. The magazine Marie Claire is £2.85 landside, for example air side, it's just £2.50.