Libraries and bookstores.

Indoors and where?

Hello,

I hope you are having a good week so far.

My week has been a little busy with work and work travel, one of those times when days fly by and suddenly you realise a week has gone by.

This year like all others, I had taken the resolution to make it a point to take out time for reading. And so far it has been a comparatively good year by previous year standards that I keep a track of using the Goodreads app.

This year, I have read more of fiction so far, because I find it easier to read fiction especially if I’m in a reading slump but since I’m clearing not on a slump therefore I am also mentally taking a note of all the non-fiction books that I want to read for the remaining part of the year.

I recently came across a picture of “cubbon park” in the newspaper whereby a few people were scattered across the park and few were sitting on the branches of a tree- reading.

That intrigued me specially because I visited Cubbon Park last year on my first visited to Bangalore and absolutely loved it.

Reading further I got to know about this new initiative called “cubbbonReads” wherein people in the city get together with their favourite books at a designated public space at a given time and day shared via social media to enjoy reading in an open public space like a park along with fellow readers. I loved this concept and immediately searched them on Instagram to know more. It appears that such an initiative is being taken in many other cities whereby silent reading book clubs are are quite popular to enjoy reading in the door settings.

I think it’s a great initiative and if I were in any of these cities I would have definitely made it my ritual to go. What do you think about such a concept? Do check out of such a book club exists in your city too and see if it interests you. I am aware now that Delhi has one.

In our otherwise fast-paced life it is very easy to lose touch with reading as a leisure activity because now that space is crowded with social media.

I remember in school every week we used to have a compulsory library period during which time we were given time to explore the books of our choice and also to take our favourites home. I was initiated into the world of library by my school and I’m very grateful for that for as a kid a lot of time of summer vacations was spent reading Enid blytons and goosebumps books.

Now, it has been engrained so well that I always make it a point to visit the library and nearest book stores in whichever city I live in.

In DU, the library of the faculty of arts was my go-to place for spending some time in quiet reading, later the idea of reading translated into studying at the same place so much so that I continued to study in the set up of the library during my preparation days as well.

Later during my posting in Murshidabad I encountered the best collection of rare books in the district library and was literally awestruck to see the original copies of some of the rare books along with the original copy of the Constitution of India. Some of those books even had notes in ink from the British period that particularly excited me as it made me aware that these books had survived such a long period of time.

Why I love the library is because I really love the smell of the books, the way the books are arranged on the shelves in a particular orders, that sometimes the best books are hidden in some corner and to read the names of all those who had borrowed the book before me and somehow I feel like I am time travelling.

The oxford bookstore at Park Street in Kolkata was a favourite spot to visit every-time I was in the city. They even have a small cafe above the book store that serves the best coffee in my opinion. Another place where I would visit was the College Street. If you visit Kolkata you must go there.

I hope you’ll plan a visit to your nearest book store or library soon, if you do, tell me about it. :)

This photo is from the Oxford bookstore Kolkata from 2019.