About 20 years ago, I sought an alternative to Amazon. A friend recommended Kennys.ie. A physical bookshop with the oldest book webshop in the world. A family-owned, family-run, tax-paying bookshop. New and used books. An independent bookshop in Galway, beloved for supporting authors and the local arts. The first books I ordered arrived with a bookmark and a handwritten note signed by one of the Kennys. I swear I could smell the Atlantic Ocean waft out of the parcel. The opposite of Amazon.
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@CiaraNi @quixoticgeek Other Irish booksellers who have done excellent service for my present shoppings are https://www.thebookresort.ie/pages/about-us for books with chocolate and Chapters for their genre themed mystery boxes.
For about 20 years since, any time somebody online asks ’can anyone recommend a bookshop that posts internationally?’, I leap in like an excited child to recommend Kennys. Without fail, other people leap in to add their own recommendations and reader’s love letter to Kennys, both the bookshop and the family and staff who run it.
Anyway.
”Galway bookseller suspects 'scattergun' order is for AI”
"There was everything from History of the Caribbean to Rules of the Road to Internet Explorer for Dummies to books on health & medicine, just no particular genre and very strange."
'They believe they may be getting picked up at collection points in Europe & shipped to the US where so-called "fair use" policies make it legal to slice the spines. The books are scanned using the text to train AI, then destroyed.'
https://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2026/0810/1587288-galway-books-ai/
