Sir, Congratulations to Kevin Connolly and his able assistant at that "excellent bookshop and cafe on Lower Ormond Quay". We know it well and John Boland's praise (Bookworm, June 14th) is well deserved.
However, we would like to correct his statement that there is a "dwindling number of other such shops in this country". If anything, the number of secondhand and antiquarian bookshops is increasing. When we opened the first real bookshop in West Cork in 1981 we were justly able to style ourselves "the only bookshop between Cork and New York" - we meant the only bookshop selling nothing bat books, as against the confectionery shops with a few paperbacks in the corner. Now there are five more in this area alone.
Some issue catalogues regularly and have been doing so for years, ourselves for 14 years, Ceall Hyland for well over 20. Some of the Dublin dealers and shops have been sending out catalogues since last century and will, we hope, continue to do so well into the next. So, John Boland may note, the secondhand and antiquarian book trade in this country is anything but diminishing. - Yours, etc.,
Schull Books,
Ballydehob,
Co Cork.