Bangalore Book Lovers, This Sunday’s Bookstore Crawl Has Your Name All Over It

The fifteenth edition of Book & Brews hits the streets of Bangalore on the 30th of April for their second annual Book Shop Crawl and tickets are already sold out! Why? Because Bangalore does more than support their bookstores, they celebrate them with sax solos, live art and beautiful spoken word. On Sunday the 30th at 11 AM a group of book lovers from all around Bangalore will gather at Koshy’s before beginning The Book Shop Crawl to seven of Bangalore’s most loved bookstores, each hosting a unique project.

Books & Brews, founded by The Humming Tree’s Vidhi Kundan Jain, is a series of live gatherings that bring together a community of interested people for curated and intimate sessions around books, reading, and the love for words. They do this through book meetups, silent reading parties, book shop crawls, spoken word, poetry, workshops, and author meets among other interactive activities. However, the book crawl is especially important because it shines the limelight on bookstore owners. “They are really excited to share their stories”, says Vidhi.

If perusing through great bookstores and speaking to bookstore owners about the ups and downs of running an independent shop wasn’t enough fun, this Sunday will feature in store entertainment from several talented writers, musicians and artists. As far as music goes Vasudhaiva Ride will be setting the mood in one of the project spaces with some saxophone and percussion, while Harmonicist Siddharth Suresh soundtracks the jaunt through the bustling streets of Bangalore.

Writers Roopa Pai and Shweta Taneja will speak on books they’ve authored, why cultivating a healthy culture of bookstores is of the paramount importance, and perhaps conduct a reading session. Moreover, illustrators Jai Jain, Natalia Rebecca Issac, Swadha Jaiswal and household name Khushnaz Lala (she designs for Grammy nominated artist Mike Posner, and has recently published 3 picture books with Harper Collins) will live sketch participants in the bookstores as they flip through pages and wander through book shelves. “People will get to see that this movement is actually art in the making”, says Vidhi.

This year’s Book Shop Crawl should be especially exciting as Books & Brews have just launched their page and will now be curating events and gatherings just about anywhere you can imagine opening a book or getting lost in a story, from cafe gardens to concert halls. This also means Books & Brews will support, curate, promote and manage shows for literary festivals, international and local writers, publishers and readers in India. Check out their upcoming events and share your love of books with this wonderful community.