Welcome to a little crowd-sourced project, mapping indie bookstores in India, prompted by an online exchange with Leonard Fernandes — who also did a disproportionate amount of the heavy lifting — and put together by me. It is embedded below, but the link on Google maps is https://bit.ly/bookstores-in-india
You can help by going through the map and checking if we’ve missed bookshops you know and giving us their names and locations, or even better, a Google Maps link or latitude-longitude. As you will see, vast swathes of the country are missing. And, since my social media circles are more likely to include folks who read in English, there are probably lost of shops selling books in other Indian languages that we missed. Also, if I’ve included shops that you know are not primarily booksellers (see next para), let me know. (If you’d prefer not to comment here, you can find my social media links here on the sidebar.)
What it includes:
Brick-and-mortar shops which are solely or mostly sellers of trade books. (Simplistically, not textbooks or academic publications. Though, of course, books you and I buy for leisure reading can find themselves included in syllabi and all books educate us.)
What it does not include:
• Shops that primarily sell stationery, or textbooks or educational books.
• Shops that sell books that promote only one religion, or one organisation, or one political party.
• Shops owned by a publisher or distributor which only, or primarily, sell books by that publisher or distributor.
• Shops which are part of large chains (more than two shops in more than two cities, to draw an arbitrary line). Nothing against these — I’ve done a fair amount of book-buying from them — but this is to support the indies.
If the shop also runs within the same premises an unrelated for-profit business — say a café — then we’ll only include them if their primary gig is book-selling.
Oh, and you should check out Independent Bookshops Association of India which is still building its membership.
I do not own or run any bookshop, and no one has paid to be included in this map.
Support your local small and indie bookshops!
Since I know lost of people lack the patience to go through the map to see what is already listed before making suggestions, here is the list, sorted by state, city, name. There are 102 of them thus far.
Pages The Book Shop (Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh)
Buddha Grove, The (Guwahati, Assam)
Browser, The (Sector 8, Chandigarh, Chandigarh)
Capital Book Depot (Sector 17, Chandigarh, Chandigarh)
English Book Shop, The (Sector 17, Chandigarh, Chandigarh)
Kutub Khana Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Chandni Chowk, New Delhi, Delhi)
Eureka Bookstore (Greater Kailash, New Delhi, Delhi)
Midland Book Shop (Hauz Khas, New Delhi, Delhi)
Bookshop, The (Jor Bagh, New Delhi, Delhi)
Full Circle Bookstore (Khan Market, New Delhi, Delhi)
Faqir Chand and Sons (Rabindra Nagar, New Delhi, Delhi)
May Day (Shadipur, New Delhi, Delhi)
Midland Book Shop (South Extension I, New Delhi, Delhi)
Flying Goat- Café | Bar | Bookstore, The (Anjuna, Goa)
Manali Bookshop & Computer Services (Anjuna, Goa)
Literati Bookshop (Calangute, Goa)
Dogears Bookshop, The (Margao, Goa)
Golden Heart Emporium Book Store (Margao, Goa)
Broadway Book Centre (Panaji, Goa)
Singbal's Book House (Panaji, Goa)
Varsha Book Stall (Panaji, Goa)
Chapter101 (Gurugram, Haryana)
Quill and Canvas (Gurugram, Haryana)
Maria Brothers (The Mall, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh)
Blossom Book House (Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Bookhive, The (Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Bookworm, The (Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Gangarams Book Bureau (Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Harivu Books (Basavanagudi, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Select Book Shop (Brigade Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Lightroom Book Store (Cooke Town, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Gangarams (Domlur, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Sapna Book House (Indiranagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Nagasri Book House (Jayanagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Funky Rainbow (JP Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Ranga Shankara book shop (JP Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Walking BookFairs (JP Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Paperback Bookshop (Kalyan Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Aakruti Books (Rajajinagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Bahuroopi Book Hub (Sanjayanagara, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Champaca Bookstore (Vasanth Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Goobe's book republic (Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka)
Kochi Books (Kochi, Kerala)
Modern Book Centre (Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala)
Saradha Book Center (Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala)
Readers Paradise (Indore, Madhya Pradesh)
Rupayana Booksellers (Indore, Madhya Pradesh)
Granth the book world (Kolhapur, Maharashtra)
Book Lovers (Andheri West, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Happy Book Stall (Bandra, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Title Waves (Bandra, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Trilogy (Bandra, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
White Crow Books and Coffee, The (BKC, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Books Plaza (Borivali, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Kitab Khana (Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Wayword & Wise (Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Hindi Granth Karyala (Girgaon, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Paperback Prithvi Bookshop (Juhu, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Naaz Book Depot (Mandvi, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Kahani Tree (Prabhadevi, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Granth Book Store (Santacruz, Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Bombay Book Bureau (Vashi, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Varsha Book Centre (Vashi, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Pagdandi (Baner, Pune, Maharashtra)
Akshardhara Book Gallery (Pune, Maharashtra)
Book World (Pune, Maharashtra)
Read & Brew - The Bookstore Cafe (Pune, Maharashtra)
Paper Planes Lamka (Churachandpur, Manipur)
Books & Coffee (Imphal, Manipur)
Readers Book Store, The (Imphal, Manipur)
Ukiyo Bookstore (Imphal, Manipur)
Book Mark, The (Shillong, Meghalaya)
Book Cafè, The (Aizawl, Mizoram)
Common Room, The (Kohima, Nagaland)
Modern Book Depot (Bhubaneswar, Odisha)
Walking BookFairs (Bhubaneswar, Odisha)
Basement Bookstore, The (Jaipur, Rajasthan)
Kaul Kraft (Jaipur, Rajasthan)
Rachna Books (Gangtok, Sikkim)
Rare Books (Mandaveli, Chennai, Tamil Nadu)
K Krishnamurthy Booksellers (T. Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu)
Turning Point (Madurai, Tamil Nadu)
Sudarsan Books and Crafts (Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu)
Haziq & Mohi Rare Books (Charminar, Hyderabad, Telangana)
Book Mark (Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana)
Akshara Books (Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, Telangana)
M. R. Book Store (Ameerpet, Hyderabad, Telangana)
Danish Mahal (Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh)
New Book Center (Meerut, Uttar Pradesh)
Indica Books (Bhelupur, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh)
Harmony The Book Shop (Shivala, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh)
English Book Depot, The (Chukkuwala, Dehradun, Uttarakhand)
Natraj Publishers (Gandhi Garam, Dehradun, Uttarakhand)
Book World (Karanpur, Dehradun, Uttarakhand)
Cambridge Book Depot (Mussoorie, Uttarakhand)
Modern Book & General Store (Nainital, Uttarakhand)
Narains Bookstore (Nainital, Uttarakhand)
Oxford Books and Stationery Co. (Darjeeling, West Bengal)
The Epilogue (Chotta Bhalukhop, Kalimpong, West Bengal)
Bingsha Shatabdi (Taltala, Kolkata, West Bengal)
Story Teller, The (Kolkata, West Bengal)
Twins Cafe and Bookstore, The (Siliguri, West Bengal)