Reads of Nassau Street

A lot of people are saying the staff in Reads are friendly and helpful, but I have a different experience. I got a home-​made Congratulations card printed for € 5.00. The first time the colours bled and came out too dark so I went back and asked them if they could do it again and increase the brightness, which they did. Another € 5.00.
However, when I went to fold the card this time, the white border which I had put around the front image was cut off at the top. It looked pretty terrible, so I went back to them.
The manager guy stared at me as if I was speaking Russian, then repeated my problem to the girl who printed it. She got a bit defensive and said «well the image wasn’t the correct size, so that’s the best it’s going to look». This was bullshit, because the first time I had it printed, the border was intact. She clearly just didn’t do it properly (I even overheard her asking the manager how to increase the brightness which is a fairly basic adjustment). The manager looked at me, shrugged and handed me back the useless card, without offering any solution. There were so many customers swarming around I couldn’t argue. So I paid € 10.00 for nothing.
I’m really pissed. My experience of the Reads in Sandyford is much better. The staff actually have time for you there.

Reads/​Eason has everything you need for stationary, office supplies, art supplies and plenty of books. Unfortunately they are pricey but do have a large selection. I can always find what I’m looking for at this store. Helpful staff

So this place has pretty much everything you need especially if you’re a student. They supply and do pretty much everything stationary so if you are looking for something you couldnt find anywhere else this spot will most definately have it. Like that I had previously been to 3 shops looking for ink for my printer. All 3 shops out of stock. So I went to reliable reads. Delighted to find out they had them in stock However I was pretty miffed today when the cost of 2 ink cartridges were costing me 63 quid… The most ive ever paid max 52 for 2 cartridges for the exact same ones. I thought that was fairly steep and had to give one of them back. A-​OK for stock but lost 2 stars for cost!

I went looking for some cheap travel books and found a great source here. To be honest, the big attraction for me of this place is the stationery. I am such a stationery nerd and spend ages just browsing that section. It’s amazing what you never realised you absolutely needed until you find it in Read’s stationery section.

I don’t get this place, not at all. It’s not that it’s next to impossible to find a staff member, they just don’t exist, nor their pitiful and dated selection that annoys me, no, I have problems with their pricing policy. They, or their Easons owners, have decided to «mislead» their customers by claiming to offer a 33% reduction, claiming to offer it by claiming a sterling exchange rate of 1.36 to the Euro. (Today it’s 1.20 after the Euros collapse of the last week!) They have for years inflated the exchange rate and thus claimed they’re offering a huge reduction. Hey some people can do simple maths Easons!

Reads is a one stop shop for stationary, for me anyway. The stationary section of Reads is the only reason I go out of my way to come here.
This time I needed another A4 display book to stick all my random recipe print outs in, as my current one was full. They had a great choice 10, 20, 36, 50, 60, 80 and 100 pages… I think that is what they had, anyway bottom line is they had a lot of different sizes to pick from. I chose the 36 paged one, which was 10 EUR. I thought it as a bit expensive and its the reason I didn’t get one with more pages.
Its a bit pokey and can be a headache to get around in when there a lots of other customers.

If you want a no nonsense stationary and book shop then look no further than Reads. What it lacks in character it more than makes up for in range of stock. I want A2 yellow textured paper. Reads has it. I want a hobbyist motorcycle repair magazine. Reads has it.
The prices are competitive and the shop floor is roomy and plentiful. One serious gripe though is that it’s very depressing. Everyone in there looks so glum and defeated. Even the customers. This unfortunately loses it two stars.
Give the staff some free ice cream and a back rub and it’ll get another star or two.

I guess last time I came in there was a huge sale going on, because recently I went in and got 3 books and it was over 30 euro.
The staff were still pretty helpful, but not as much as last time.

Excellent service. Great prices. Friendly and attentive staff even when they are run off their feet.

The tawdry red of Reads’ shop exterior makes known what gaudy products lay within the front door. The ground floor is a kitsch collection of trashy magazines, bad quality stationery, a whole conglomerate of cheap chocolate and penny sweets and aged puzzle books amongst other uninteresting products.
It is not until you descend to the lower ground floor that you can start accepting this place to be an authentic, genuine retailer. The lower ground floor is awash with excellent stationery, a very decent collection of arts and crafts odds and ends, art canvasses, glues and adhesives, scissors, paper craft, all different types and colours of paper and card, needlecraft, staplers, rubber stamping, sakura pens, card kits, paper cutters, craft essentials, felt and foam, mache letters and shapes, moulding, paint by numbers, brushes, superb quality Daler-​Rowney Paint Range, easels, pastels, Winsor & Newton Paint Range, pens, pencils and markers and calligraphy plus many more! I have ventured down to this floor on a few occasions when I have needed particular materials and specific coloured paint to make my Halloween costume for example. I also love to make my own Christmas cards, all of the things for which I found on this floor. The lower ground floor of Reads therefore provides a notably eclectic and impressively extensive range of arts and crafts and I can honestly say that rarely have I come away minus any of the particular materials I am looking for.
Disregard Reads’ disappointing, lackluster and I would even go so far as to say, ‘irrelevant’ ground floor stockpile and head straight to the very respectable lower ground floor collections of excellent artistic utensils that would serve both the budding and serious artist and painters proud.

There has been a small reshuffle in bookshops around Dublin lately. Chapters moved from Abbey Street to their huge new premises on Parnell Street. Easons have finally, after plenty of rumours, closed their Eason-​Hanna store on the corner of Dawson Street and just around the corner, Reads (bought by Easons in 2006) has opened a new, larger, dedicated bookstore.
Apart from the abysmal branding of the new Reads store — garishly red façade and chicken scrawl logo — the internal layout of the shop is horrible. With Waterstones and Hodges Figgis within a 2 minute walk, both with four stories of selling space, the new Reads needs to innovate if it is to go up against these two juggernauts. With most of my time spent in the children’s books section of any store I enjoyed the removed room that Easons-​Hannas had reserved for young readers. In comparison, Reads has children’s books shelved alongside science fiction, fantasy and adult graphic novels.
Not everything about the new store is negative. Reads look to be trying maintain their edge on selling books at the best price that they can — with a large selection of bestselling and highly acclaimed books available at great prices. But at the cost of the aesthetic pleasure of feeling comfortable in the store, is it worth the saving?

Reads. OF NASSAU STRRET.
World’s most annoying ad or what? If you haven’t heard this played once or a gazillion times on a Dublin radio station, you must be living under a rock. Or maybe just outside of Dublin… But take my word for it, it’s so annoying!
However, I am not reviewing the ad, I am reviewing the shop. And in complete contrast to the ad, the shop is pretty damn good!
Lots of stationary stuff/​magazine/​books at really cheap prices. Cheapest and best in Dublin.

Anyone who asks you what street Read’s is on has clearly never been subjected to the annoyingly effective ad that tells you over and over that Read’s is on Nassau Street (right up there with Harvey Norman on the irritability scale).
So, yes, Read’s has annoying radio ads and it’s on Nassau Street. It also offers great value in all things stationary. From office supplies to art supplies to books, folders, paper, pencils and staplers of all possible sizes and shapes, Read’s has it. If their ads are to be believed then they offer better value than any other stationary supplier in Dublin (they name-​check Easons) and they’re definitely good value. They’re also quite specialist — if your art teacher is insisting on an obscurely measured folder or a pencil of bizarre thickness then Read’s are likely to have it.
It’s always bustling and crammed downstairs with students and teachers forming endless queues headed by exasperated staff.

Reads sometimes looks really busy so don’t bother looking around for what you are looking for, just tell one of the staff what you want to buy or copy or bind etc and they will find it, get it or do it in a flash! They really are great and helpful!

You’ve heard the ubiquitous radio ads, now visit the shop.
Reads’ entire reason for existence is to undercut Eason’s prices, which is entirely ok by my book (book, get it? So close to a pun).
Reads are quite lacking in the book department, and by book I mean novels, biographies, etc. All they really have are discounted bestsellers. Not that unlike Easons, I suppose.
Where Reads really come into their own is in stationary supplies. There are two big stationary suppliers in Dublin, Reads and Easons, and Reads stated purpose is to be cheaper than Easons, so why bother your arse with Easons?
I was there only today, and Reads were in serious risk of only receiving a three star review because they didn’t have writable dvds with printable surfaces, but then no-​one else seemed to stock the bastard things, and a very nice and helpful man there sold me some non-​printable surface writable dvds (4 blips for 10) and some adhesive printable cd covers (bout 8 squids for 30), so I suppose that all is forgiven.
Yeah, so Reads is your only man for your stationary needs. Not much cop as far as being a bookshop goes, but I suppose some people must read Lee Child, so there’s that too.

1 stop shop for all your stationary needs!!! This place is a godsend to students… anything you could need for college or school, this place has it. It’s also nice and cheap which, on a student budget, is number one!
Aside from the usual binders, a4 pads, pens etc, you can also get USB sticks (at € 10, not too shabby!), art supplies, computer accessories and upstairs houses a bookshop and newsagent!
Interesting titbit of information… Reads had an ongoing advertising campaign war with Easons, claiming (truthfully — not all advertising is false!) that their products were significantly cheaper. Easons response? Buy their competitors and show them who’s boss!

The book section is fine, the variety is not great but the discounts are fantastic! This place comes into it’s own for stationary. The bottom floor is a treasure trove of about a trillion different variations on the humble red pen!

This is the place i go to get all of my stationary and exam papers for school. They have a really great range of products at good prices. Especially their books and magazines, a HUGE selection of magazines, anything you could want, its there! Definetly the best place for all your bits and bobs for school, the staff are friendly and helpful. My favorite bookstore.

A cornucopia of cheap stationary and anything to do with stationary, Reads really is a one stop shop for stationary needs. They have a significant selection of art materials, computer consumables, books and magazines. The printing centre further down Nassau Street does the cheapest photocopying in town. You can get up to A2 size, lamenation, on canvas, the works.