Terrific new book store opens in Tullamore

TULLAMORE'S newest book shop has opened its doors and people are flocking in to pick up some great reads.

The store which is upstairs in the Vincent's Shop on Offaly Street holds up to 4,000 books, including fiction, factual, history and a whole range of other interesting books.

Ian Deering is the manager of Vincent's Shop, Ian says his biggest problem is sorting through all the books that are coming in as he is inclined to start reading them himself.

''We always had a book section on the far wall of the shop and we had it broken down into fiction, reference, children's, DVD's and CD's. But people kept saying 'we love books, we wish you had more.' We had this space upstairs which was used for storage and not doing an awful lot. It was a bit of an itch in the back of my mind, so we got our heads together and we said let's convert it into a proper book shop,'' said Ian who had just visited a secondhand book shop in Galway which he said was the busiest that day. They asked all the other Vincent's shops in the area to send them any of their book overflows and the books came in their droves.

''We got the full collection of Ross O'Carroll Kelly books this morning. We have lots of teen, fiction and graphic novels such as The Hunger Games series and JRR Tolkien books. We are getting unusual Irish books, we have a copy of a Padraig Pearse book in the original As Gaeilge.

We have fabulous books coming through the door. We have history and local history. We have two fabulous books called plant portraits and plant names published in the1840's.  They are in fabulous condition and have lovely prints going back years. They would look lovely on a coffee table. We have lots of old bibles and you can see family trees in the back of them. There is something for everybody,'' said Ian.

''We officially opened last Friday, we had a fantastic weekend of reading and it is bringing in some new customers.''

People have also been asking about a coffee and tea dock, Ian says he has been inundated with people asking him about this but says the issue is trying to bring water up to the second floor. However, he has not ruled it out and depending on the success of the book shop it could be something for the future.

At the moment there is an offer of three books for the price of two. Of course all the money is for charity and is spent locally.

Below another section of the new book store at Vincent's in Tullamore