SO what are the greatest Irish books ever written? One man who should know is Des Kenny of Kenny's bookshop in Galway, which for long was a Mecca for any traveler to the west coast of Ireland. Now Kenny has written a book published by Currach Press (www.currach.ie) entitled 101 Irish Books You Must Read, which comes as close as I know to the definitive listing of Irish titles of all time.

When you walked into the old Kenny's bookstore in the heart of Galway you were stepping into one of the greatest bookshops on the face of the earth in my opinion, a wonderful, family owned store that featured everything from classics to contemporary, full of nooks and crannies where you could while away an afternoon.

Several generations of the Kenny family were always on hand to assist if needed, and that tradition is still proudly carried on by the family at their new bookstore to this day.

The place had a wonderful neighborly feel to it. But the Kenny family was quick to move with the times. In 1994 they established Europe's first ever online library of books, making it possible for customers from far-flung corners of the earth to view their titles.

The center city store is gone now, but the family recently reopened their retail operation on the Tuam Road in Galway, much to the relief of those ardent book lovers who long bemoaned the passing of the old store.

Kenny is also the founder of Kenny's International Book Club, which to date has sold over three million books to 1,500 clients in 45 countries. I am delighted to note that the idea first arose when I was speaking with Kenny in our New York office about 20 years ago.

Back in that pre-Amazon age I was bemoaning the fact that it was nigh impossible to get good Irish authors in America and that major bookstores rarely carried contemporary Irish writers, preferring the tried and true of Joyce, Beckett and Yeats.

We talked about an Irish book of the month club that would send new titles to the Irish diaspora and to those of no Irish origin who just loved the literature. Kenny followed through on the idea, which his family has since turned into a great success.

Now comes his book on the greatest Irish books of all time. "It is what might be called a motley crew. It is not a definitive list of what you should read but rather a recommendation on what you could read. It is a celebration of the men and women who had the courage skill and stamina to contribute to a magnificent tradition," he says.

It is certainly controversial also. There is no Ulysses by James Joyce for instance, perhaps a reflection of the fact that all of the books Kenny has listed are very accessible to readers.

Several are in the Irish language, including a personal favorite, An tOileanach (the Islandman) Tomas O Croimhthain's extraordinary account of life on the remote Blasket Islands off Kerry in the last century.

At the other extreme is the collected poems of W.B. Yeats. Kenny remembers his mother telling him the tale of the dismally small crowd that waited for Yeats' coffin to disembark from a ship that sailed from France bearing his body home to Sligo to be buried at Drumcliffe graveyard under Ben Bulben's head.

The book is full of such anecdotes of the great writers that the Kenny family have encountered in the decades that their bookstore became such a magnet.

There are wonderful personal anecdotes about meeting with writers such as Kate O'Brien or Mary Lavin and poets such as John Montague, whose book The Rough Field became the first ever poetry bestseller for the Kennys.

It is an eclectic book where Marie Heaney, wife of Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, gets equal billing for her work on Irish mythology as the laureate does for his collection entitled District and Circle.

That is part of the charm of the book, which was also apparent in the old bookstore, a sense of quirkiness and homage to the offbeat or unexpected book that might never make a bestseller list but was a gem in its own right. It is well worth purchasing on line.