Can’t think of a good use for your old and dusty Westerns, Sidney Sheldon staples or those hard-to-giveaway classics? Wishing for more room to accommodate new books you’ve been eyeing? In that case, consider your problem solved.
Starting today, ‘ >Books on Toast ,’ a two-day book donation drive, will collect books for a month and put them up for sale at a nominal cost on November 30. All the proceeds will go to a charity organisation, Teach For India (TFI). The initiative has seen two events in Mumbai and one in Bangalore.
Inspired by a local library in the United States that raised funds for itself by holding book donation drives, 27-year-old freelance writer and social media consultant Anuya Jakatdar decided to start something similar and ‘Books on Toast’ was born.
“I ended up buying about 27 books for 10 dollars, and that too authors like Stephen King, Gregory Maguire, John Irving et al. It was brilliant. After I came back, I toyed with the idea of doing something similar here, found friends willing to help out and then went ahead,” Anuya says. The name, she says, was something they came up on a whim.
With popular authors such as Samit Basu and Ashok Banker tweeting about ‘Books on Toast,’ donating books for charity has never been more fun. If you’re thinking twice about giving away your books, remember you can still buy different ones at inexpensive prices.
Books can be donated at drop-off points across the city. You can contact Vaishnavi Prasad at 98844 08574 for more information. The sale is at Ashvita Nirvana, 33, 5th Avenue, Besant Nagar, Chennai.
