Curating a community of readers and book lovers

Falah Faisal

I pride myself on knowing the ins and outs of every book store in the city. But still, there is a chance that something might surprise me. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, tucked away in a quiet corner of Queen’s Road is Champaca Bookstore, a cute little bookstore, coffee shop, and a children’s library.  I first discovered it when I attended one of the many author events they organise.
Opened in 2019, it is run by Radhika Timbadia whose selection and curation of books make it stand out from the rest. She explains “We lay a lot of emphasis on independent publishers, 40-50% of our books are by women authors, we also have queer books and Dalit literature. We approach the book selection as readers.”
It’s a pleasure to walk around the place and discover something you’ve never heard of and then sit with the book over a cup of coffee and then decide if this is something you’d like to pick up. “People actually keep coming back for the community we are building.
 At one point we were having two author events a week that included interviews with Tiffany Tsao and David Quammen who are some of our favourite authors,” she said.
It was not all smooth sailing though, because 10 months into the life of the fledgling bookstore, the pandemic hit. But every setback is an opportunity to innovate and instead of setting back, they started a website with a subscription plan where books based on a theme were home delivered to their readers.
“The theme for the first year was Translations where we featured a lot of books that otherwise won’t get looked at. This year we did Travel and we shall have a new theme from July along with an updated plan that you can find on our website,” says Timbadia. The book for this month is Atlas of an Anxious Man by Christoph Ransmayr.
But how do bookstores these days compete with e-giants like Amazon. “It is not a competition because we do so many things an Amazon can’t, like recommend books, build a community and on a website, you don’t have the same pleasure of discovery that you do at a bookstore,” she says.
This Saturday Champaca Bookstore will be launching the Second edition of the 1Shantiroad Cookbook. So if you’re in the mood for a break away from the constant hustle, pop your head in there around 3 pm.