Today on the selection box.

The only two times I don't have my phone in my hand probably are when I'm running or reading.

You know, that's the reality of it.

And I kind of have to, even when I'm reading, I have to put it in the other room so that I'm not.

You can't double screen with a book, but you know, that kind of a thing where the attraction of it is there.

That's not good.

Like that's just, there's no way that this little thing should have our attention the way that it does.

You know, it's actually, it's probably the measure of a good book is whether I'm thinking about my phone or not when I'm reading it.

I travelled to Manut to meet Keen Byrne to talk about how he went from almost crunching numbers for a multinational to working in his family business at 31 years old.

But more than just the Manut bookshop, today we're going to widen the lens a little bit to talk about the rise of the indie bookstore.

With his head for numbers, trends,

logistics and 40 years of family experience in the trade keen, a better position than anyone,

I think, to tell us whether the rise of the indie bookstore is specifically an Irish thing or something much bigger.jigsaw.i. are our chosen charity partner. Please head over. Check out the amazing work

that they're doing to help young people through this pandemic. And let's face it, the raft of

issues that are going to be thrown up at the other side of this. Jigsaw.com.e, that's the place to go

if you want to support our chosen charity partner. But Keane, thanks so much for joining me.

You literally grew up in a bookstore.

Yet you had to go off and work for a big company before you realized the beauty of the small

family-owned business.

Is that what is happening with the rise of the indie bookstore in many

ways, in a larger sense? Are we all coming to the same opinion that these small things are more

precious than the big machine? Hi, Jared. Yeah, thanks for having me first off. I think you're right. I think that's what it is. I think a lot of people this last year has kind of given people time to think about these things. And as everyone knows, everyone's been working at home and has been living in the towns that maybe they were commuting out of, Mnuth being probably a prime example of that with its distance from Dublin.

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