Tuesday, August 05, 2014

The Curious Case of the Vanishing Bookstores - End of an era ?

About 10-12 years ago, during my school days, the most awaited outing in January would be to the Chennai Book Fair (I started going in 1999, and *touch-wood* haven't missed out on a single edition till date) while the month of May meant getting new Supplementary reads for English - another pleasurable shopping experience.

However, considering the way school curricula are being structured these days, with a focus only on molding them into functional robots that decide to become an engineer or a doctor or a chartered accountant, the pleasures of reading have been all but lost on the current generation !

To top it all, the city bookstores are all rapidly closing down - Odyssey in Anna Nagar is long gone, the iconic Landmark at Apex Plaza (the chain's first branch incidentally, popular for its bookshelf containing hand-picked suggestions from Hemu Ramaiah, its founder) and, now the vast, sprawling Landmark - Citi Center.

Whats more - while the City Center branch is offering upto 70% off on everything that's left in the store, the Landmark - Spencer's Plaza also has a flat 50% or above sale going on, instilling a shrill fear as to whether it's closure is also in the pipeline. Here are pictures from the last two shopping-sprees.




I'm really clueless about what's going to feed my hunger for books in the future - I'm not a big fan of reading novels on a device like the Kindle (yes, Old-school much, Thank you. Been there - heard that, not changing). I really hope someone opens up a bookstore like the one Meg Ryan owns in that beautiful movie starring Tom Hanks as well (You've Got Mail!) - that would be just the cure for my sickness !

-Quizzo.