An ode to my love affair with bookstores
We all have a happy place. A place that calms restless minds and soothes weary souls. Your sanctuary on joyous days, difficult days and all the insipid ones in between.
Bookstores and libraries are my haven. Old, rustic bookstores with crooked signs that seem older than time itself, glossy bookstores in fancy shopping malls, small shops tucked inside tiny alleys…
I’ve had an intimate connection with them since I was a child. During summer breaks, my aunt would drop off my cousin Shikha and I at the British Council library in Janpath, Delhi, where we would spend hours happily marooned in the children’s corner. The library had a generous borrowing policy, so we would each leave with 6–7 books. During the car ride back home, we would fight over who gets first dibs on the most-prized book in the haul.
My love affair with bookstores has only grown over the years. And as I have slowly come to realize, I seek more than just books from them. The further I move away from home, the more I get drawn to bookstores to give me a temporary sense of belonging. Somehow, it is possible that a strange, new place in a strange, new city can instantly make you feel rooted and secure.
There was a tiny, second-hand bookstore-cum-café up a hill, within walking distance of my home in Hong Kong. There was a wind chime right by the wooden entrance door. I felt like I was walking into a mystical wonderland. I spent an inordinate time reading, reflecting and healing here during those seven years in the city. It helped that the café had the creamiest cheesecake on the menu.
Back then, I struggled with homesickness, just like any other new immigrant. The homesickness wasn’t just for my family. I missed the familiarity that comes with living amongst people that look and talk like you. Living in a largely Cantonese and white neighborhood, working for a British company and writing about an overwhelming white male-dominated private equity industry had unmoored me culturally in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I would seek happiness in the tiniest of ‘brown’ connections. I would rummage through piles of books scattered all over the café to find works of a South Asian author. My day was made if I found a Pico Iyer or Kamila Shamsie book selling for less than an average G&T in Central.
I hunt for bookstores wherever I go. During holidays, especially solo travels, a quaint bookstore with some nice drip coffee is the best me-time I can ask for. I have a habit of buying a book from every new city I visit to memorialize the bookstore that became my home away from home for a few hours, sometimes a few minutes. One of my top bucket-list items is to spend a week in Ireland, where a couple rents their bookstore as an ‘Airbnb’, allowing hopeless lovers like me the chance to run a bookstore for a few days.
In New York, a place that has both tested and freed me mentally, book cafes have continued to be my therapy jaunts. I first discovered the Housing Works bookstore-cum-café in Soho on a date. We spent hours browsing through the meticulously kept collection that ran across two floors. By the end of the date, I fell so much in love with the bookstore’s warm energy that I signed up to become a volunteer worker.
This year, I have spent more time at the Book Club in East Village than my own apartment. It’s a trek from my Upper East Side apartment but there is no other place I’d rather be on an emotionally overwhelming day. It is a tiny place, made cozy with its dim-yellow lighting, leather armchairs, carpeted floors and a small green backyard. The music is moody and melancholic. The walls of the restrooms are plastered with pages of Little Women. I come here at odd hours just to be able to snag the comfiest brown chair in the center. I come here to feel whole again.
I have made peace with my place in the world as a brown person, so I’m no longer looking for representation on the bookshelves of New York. But as with any other perennially conflicted millennial, one void must be filled with another. Now, as I wrestle with questions of gender, identity and singlehood, my eyes go looking for Elif Shafak and Rachel Cusk.
I’ve spent enough time in bookstores romanticizing about owning one of my own one day. A simple, no-frills place filled with books and red wine. When that time does come, though, I hope I’m not scanning the bookshelves all over again to cure a new malaise.
