Are you fond of reading? Do you occasionally want to enter the magic realism of Murakami’s world or be inspired by Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography, but are wary of heading to a bookstore, because of time and traffic constraints? Have you ever wanted a service that can lend books, for free, like an old friend? You may be in luck.
Read A Book, a booksharing initiative in Bengaluru is making an attempt to make books more accessible by renting out books, free of cost on their platform. The initiative also delivers the books to your doorstep. The initiative was born out of a desire to make books more accessible by software engineer and bibliophile Kanica Jindal almost a year ago. “We started with over 50 members and have increased our membership base. We have almost 1,000 books, curated from mine and my business partner Monish Koppa’s collection. Books such as Murder On The Orient Express , Shantaram , Harry Potter are most popular. I wanted to make use of the books I had bought and also discuss them with like-minded people.”
She adds, “We have been really happy with the response. You have to register on our Facebook page, fill a small form and can start by picking a book from our collection and borrow any of them. You can keep it with you till you finish reading and are also free to donate books of yours to the community as well. We presently deliver across Bengaluru, in a couple of days. You can keep the book with you for a month.”
Kanica is not very keen on taking up this initiative as a full-time career. “This is my passion. I will not enjoy it as much if I do it full time. I enjoy working on this alongside my regular software job. As far as the initiative is concerned, we plan to start an independent website soon, organise meet-ups of book lovers at cafes and restaurants, to create a thriving offline community as well.”
A space for initiatives that aim at making our cities liveable
