About Champaca: We are writing to you from Champaca Bookstore, an independent bookstore and children's library in Bangalore. At Champaca, we curate our books and events to enable the discovery of diverse narratives. We are a community of readers. We have experienced the world differently thanks to the stories we've read and shared—they enrich us like nothing else, and we’re excited to share that with you! Until you can make it to our much-loved, quiet, green space in Bangalore, we can bring the books to you—we ship across India.
This August, we spent a lot of time unpacking our book orders and re-stocking our bookshelves in the store. One of the highlights of August was hosting the first Champaca Book Club meeting for the third edition of our book subscription. On a warm Sunday morning, all of our members gathered—some in-person and others virtually—to discuss the book we sent out in July: To The River by Oliva Laing. It was an intimate conversation, where we discussed why Laing found solace in walking across the River Ouse from source to sea, what time in nature means to city-dwellers and how it impacts our lives. For us, it is an absolute delight to watch book-lovers come together in this community. If being part of such a space excites you too, why not join us in our Champaca Book Subscription? We send you a book every month, and meet up in our book club to discuss it.
We had a wonderful talk on art education at our store by Nisha Nair on her book ‘Art Sparks: Ideas. Methods. Process.’ We were also thrilled to host the virtual book launch of Sheela Tomy’s debut novel ‘Valli.’ Translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil, ‘Valli’ tells the soaring tale of four generations of people who made their home in the land of Wayanad—a place that is rich with folklore and the culture of its indigenous people. You can watch the author and translator in conversation with Arunava Sinha on our YouTube channel!
If you’re in Bangalore, our leafy green store, filled with books, is open from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm. Come by, spend a quiet afternoon with us, and take home a book haul! And as always, you can find us and our book recommendations on our website, Instagram, and Twitter!
