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I am delighted to present the next piece by G Ananthakrishnan, a senior journalist formerly with The Hindu and Indian Express. Happy reading! 

Lessons Chennai Can Learn on Bookstores Revival in the US, UK

The 2024 holiday season in Washington DC was livelier as a new three-storeyed bookstore opened in the fashionable Georgetown area. Barnes and Noble opened the doors to their bright new bookstore. I had the opportunity to be among the first visitors. On tables and curated shelves were bestselling fiction and non-fiction books, all lit up in a warm glow.

My travels in the US included time spent at bookstores with a lot of character, an endangered species in India now, particularly in Chennai. Bengaluru does better with a more conversational approach towards browsers and buyers. In Washington, some of the more prominent attractions are Lost City Books, Solid State Books and Kramers, while in Seattle it is the Elliot Bay Book Company and in New York, the Strand on Broadway.

In independent bookstores, staff too recommend some titles, placing small delightfully crisp handwritten slips next to a book on why it is a must-read. National bestsellers, New York Times bestsellers, and the National Book Award winners all offer themselves from the Histories of Herodotus to Backyard Birdwatching.

Why Are Bookstores Thriving in the US & UK?

The Associated Press reported in 2024 that independent bookstores are flourishing in the US. Some 200 new stores opened during the previous year, and 190 more are scheduled to open in two years. There are 2,433 members at the American Booksellers Association, double the 2016 membership.

The trend began even during the late COVID-19 phase, when independent bookstores started popping up like the Phoenix after a crippling initial phase. The New York Times reported that Chinatown in NY even had a young entrepreneur crowdsourcing funds through GoFundMe to open an Asia-focused bookstore.

But the reasons go beyond. 

Online is still part of the business, helping people reserve books, and not as a replacement for the act of browsing for pleasure in a store. Daunt is also the CEO of Waterstones, the resurgent UK bookseller that is owned by the same company that owns Barnes and Noble. Foyles, the book retailer owned by Waterstones with the famed store in London’s Charing Cross, made a £1 mn profit last year.

State of Chennai’s Popular Bookstores

This brings me to the important question: are Chennai bookstores in good health? Until the mid-1980s, when Landmark promoted by Hemu Ramaiah opened in Nungambakkam, bookselling in Chennai was associated with Higginbothams, small bookshops on Anna Road, Giggles (the pocket-sized store at Hotel Connemara), and Triplicane booksellers who sold college books almost exclusively.

Bookstores gradually collapsed, with Landmark, found in all big malls bought over by Trent Holdings in 2008 and shut down eventually. Independent booksellers dissolved slowly, Crossword and Starmark stores opening in malls, the latter folding soon. It is difficult to find a good bookstore with a strong personality in Chennai today. Flipkart, and later Amazon, wield great power on book sales, but expensive E-reader devices such as Kindle and Nook are not mainstream in India. Even in the US, in spite of the popularity and affordability of these readers, paper books are back.

Back to the Book Fair

What Chennai still has going for it is the annual book fair. This year there were some 900 stalls at Nandanam and a steady stream of visitors, says The Hindu. Of course, gone is the Children’s Book Fair of old, the brainchild of the late K.V. Mathew of BI Publications with its colourful cartoon character parade and books for children.

The Chennai Book Fair has become established, although it does not have the same vibe as a cosy bookstore for browsers. On the plus side, the fair gives Tamil language books their biggest audience in one location. Chennai’s literary-minded also gather at The Hindu Lit for Life festival.

But What Makes Independent Bookstores Distinct?

They wear their politics on their sleeve and thrive on intellectual freedom. In America, they host books on US politics, the Palestine struggle, minority rights, the environment, climate change, labour rights, histories of Native Americans, African Americans and war, to name a few. A similar Indian equivalent would see Dalit struggles, Muslim issues, environment and gender conflicts feature prominently.

How Can Chennai Launch a Renaissance?

The global interest in paper may be the right moment to bring back mega bookstores to Chennai for book lovers to simply look at thousands of carefully curated books.

1. Books + Coffee: Adding a cafe would make things even more stimulating as a hot coffee or tea and discussion around books is favoured by many. Writer’s Cafe (Peters Road) does have a few books, but is primarily a cafe.

2. Collecting thousands of unwanted books on people’s shelves in the city to find them new homes and new readers may be a start. Perhaps someone with the drive and the interest would offer the physical shelves with a revenue share agreement to sell old and rare books? The Hindu has this story of SA Govindaraju, who launched a quest to have the biggest second-hand book shop in Chennai. He passed away in 2022 and historian V. Sriram wrote this tribute.

3. Finally, more Book events and author signings are a great community-building opportunity too.

Dive Deeper

Watch: How Barnes and Noble made a comeback by revitalizing its philosophy

Check out the following links:

1. Curated booklists at Bookshop.org

2. Visit Pulitzer Prizes at https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year

3. Visit Elliott Bay Books here 

4. Explore The Strand here 

5. Travel to Powell’s here 

6. Foyles of London here

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