The Reading Room Trivandrum

Sree Sreenivasan 24 months ago

***UPDATED REVIEW OF CURRENT LOCATION***
I wrote my original review based on a visit three years ago, at their old venue. Today, I found myself at their new location in Jawahar Nagar, a quiet neighborhood where my parents live (and my grandparents lived for decades).

The new venue is definitely an upgrade, with more room and more rooms, including separate kids and adult libraries. They seem to have a lot of events (from readings to story time to Hindi classes), as you can see from the pix and a book sale section.

The number of books is modest, but you find the greatest hits of modern Indian English writing: Rushdie, Roy, Ghosh, Divakaruni, Bhagat, et al. Also economics books ranging from Freakonomics to those by Nobel Laureates Joe Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.

I left with one book I’d already read, but wanted my kids to get now: “Midnight’s Children” by Salman Rushdie and one I’ve not read before: “Greatest Russian Short Stories” (bet it doesn’t have the greatest Russian short story ever, which is just three words long: “We elected Trump.”).

I was hoping for a whole rack of Amar Chitra Katha comics, but I have no idea if it’s a thing the kids of India read anymore! They did have a AKC Mahabharata box set, but it was much too big for me to carry back to NYC.

***ORIGINAL REVIEW, ABOUT AUGUST 2016***

I visited this bookstore and library for the first time three years ago and was blown away by the quality of books, display and the staff. More importantly, I was excited to know that such a venue existed in this city. I wished it had existed when I’d visit my grandparents countless times over the decades! A great idea, well-executed is priceless. And to do this in the midst of the digital age is brilliant as so many parents, wisely, want their kids to disconnect, even if the parents can’t themselves. All good wishes.

Pradyoth Nandak P. S. 72 months ago

The city, in fact the world needs a place like this. Good ambience with good collection of books, early 2000's English comics. Nice place to send ur kids to get educated in general about stories, books and English. They run a class for that. Good place to hangout and get together. Also for studying/ exam preparation. They also have an ambient reading room. Run by credible people, a young retired international journalist and his wife.

Arun R.S Kannan 60 months ago

This is a must visit places for everyone. Awesome ambience. Every cities needs such spaces Very well organized and calm surroundings. I have taken our kids there several times and those went there with my recommendation are also very impressed and happy with the experience.