The rarest book stores

Reading old books is always nostalgic. No matter how big a store is—stocked with its fresh batch of latest bestsellers—sitting with a cup of coffee in a quaint, little book shop can be an awfully wonderful feeling. If you’re nodding in agreement with us, here’s a list of five beloved city book stores you should make a trip to…

Blossom Book House, Bangalore: Off the crowded MG Road, as you turn into Church Street, lies a treasure house—you will find the rarest and the oldest of books in this three-storey paradise. Among the stacks that go from floor to ceiling, you’ll find rare books like the 12 volumes on WWII written by Churchill, Art Buchwald and even hardbound Indrajal comics! Oh, there’s also a 10-90 per cent at any time of the year.

Kuldeep Booksellers, Delhi: Tucked away behind Golcha Cinema Parking in Duryagunj is this small store that can put any boastful bookstore chain to shame. The place is stuffed with books—no less than 10,000. Its treasures? A rare set of hardbound Lincoln books, or the Princess Diana collection, or those WWII encyclopedias, or the paperback on the French Revolution, or…you get the drift.

Literati, Goa: This quaint bookstore is surely the coolest haunt for a book lover. It is located in a historic building in Calangute and stocks new and used books. And books on Goa by Vasco Pinho, Pantaleo Fernandes, Nirmal Kulkarni among several others. Attend one of their book-reading sessions or just settle down at their cafe, reading a book you’ve been meaning to for a while. True to its name, the country’s literati regularly mingle here, so you might just spot your favourite author.

Strand Book Stall, Mumbai: It’s an institution, a booklover’s dream-come-true abode. This establishment in the Fort area dates back to 1948. It’s not posh, it’s not spacious, it’s not even part of a big bookstore chain. But it stocks some of the rarest books you will find nowhere else. They have a ‘minimum 20 per cent discount’ on most titles and their tiny, hardbound illustrated handbooks come for as cheap as Rs 15. Very often you will find a suited man, a hotshot celebrity or a broke student browsing its vast collection here.

Earthcare Books, Kolkata: This is not your typical bookstore stocked with classic literature but it presents just as delightful a collection. Located on Midddleton Street, this bookstore is a family-run publisher-bookshop, which churns books on environmentalism, politics, spirituality, tribal issues, wildlife and women’s issues. With a special emphasis on ecology, as it name suggests, Earthcare gives you a damn good reason to nurture resources to save the planet. Worth checking out is their collection of women’s writings too.