A city isn’t a city without a bookstore : A.H. Wheelers — Book Heaven in Prayagraj , India
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A city isn’t a city without a bookstore : A.H. Wheelers — Book Heaven in Prayagraj , India
Don’t you just immediately feel at home in a bookstore ? No matter where you are in the world , in a bookstore you can surround yourself…
Don’t you just immediately feel at home in a bookstore ? No matter where you are in the world , in a bookstore you can surround yourself with your most favorite and familiar characters , melting boundaries of time and space. This is my happy place in Prayagraj (formerly known as Allahabad). I could easily easily spend multiple consecutive days exploring the never ending maze of books.
The magic of being an independent bookstore and the other world it opens up for you , an invitation to just breathe and live just an ounce of imagination is extraordinary and that is the very strong feeling that you pick up in an independent bookshop. The history of the bookstore is quite fascinating , it was started by Paris based businessmen Emile Moreau and TK Baneerjee , an Indian Businessman and other folks in Allahabad in 1877. The bookstore borrowed its name from the successful London based bookstore and its owner, “Arthur Henry Wheelers”, who was also a friend of Emile Moreau and who assisted him financially.
We need writer’s haunt or beautiful places and a cultural heaven like this to inspire us. I like living with books — I am grateful to them for giving me oxygen of positive emotions and taking away the carbon dioxide of negative emotions. They share their words , lines , paragraphs with me and i share my thoughts with them. Together we live in harmony.
The object of every book in the shelves is so exquisite and beautiful. The store is stocked with new and first editions as well as signed copies by the authors and old copies donated along the way. It feels like as many writers has said this thousand times , ‘bookstores/library feels like a literary utopia i.e. it feels like that you are surrounded by like minded friends & chosen family and i really feel that too about the bookshop as well. I’d started coming to bookstores because I wanted to learn how to write and the only consistent advice i gave myself was to read everything. I wanted to know what those writer knew or felt critically and creatively — and that can only be done by exploring their work through the lens of their writings .
“Rare books . Limited editions . Forgotten times. That sort of thing . No one is interested in such thing anymore . ’’
Each column of books or bookshelves gives the phantom that it may crumble into a storm of words. If anyone observe it very closely they may find that tonnes of books are placed and handpicked with a well thought , fit into compact corners and cavity , holding up against each other. Pulling out a title of your choice is not unlike a game of Jenga, but here’s where your first interaction with the owner begins(which i usually try to avoid because duh! Introvert-101). The next conversation happens next when you look for a particular book or author from your never ending wish list and ask for help. Unlike most other bookstores, you have a two-way discussion with the owner about anything and everything and at the same time your wish list is looked for (and located) with warmth and zeal.
Books are all about ideas and creativity, and bookstores offer a rare context for meeting other individuals interested in those endeavours.
Being in a bookshop especially helps me to think whenever life gets to me. I often find that my mind makes connections between writers and books and ideas as I walk along the shelves and look at those books. Also When I get a case of writer’s block, I head for a bookstore. The experience of walking among the books is indeed curative and surreal.
I learn a great deal about myself in a bookstore.
The aisles of a bookstore are a “choose your own adventure journey” into the depths of your curiosity and imagination. As Ryan Holiday wrote, “Good things happen in bookstores.” They still matter.
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