Book House Talk

A life story of a book store

The following article is a one to one talk with the owner of the Syndicate Book House (that’s the name of the book store).

So let me first introduce you all to the characters of this talk.

The book store owner is an old lady around her sixties (but she doesn’t look like one.) who stills look at books as they are her most prized possessions.

And what should I say about myself, you guys already know me. (and if you don’t know me just relax, you won’t miss out anything in your life, so don’t bother)

So let’s begin –

Hi, Ma’am. Can I talk to you about something if you don’t mind? Ya, Sure. Tell me how I can help you.

Ma’am, I want to talk about books if you can spare some time for me? Sure why not. It’s not like someone very often come to me to talk about books anymore.

Ma’am what do you think that would be the main reason people have nowadays become less and less familiar to books like it used to be earlier. Beta, I feel that the main reason what I consider is the impatientness of the people to gain more in less time would be the main reason behind this downfall. Moreover, this downfall is again supported by the internet, and other social sites also play some part in it.

Does the business of selling books is profitable or it is challenging now? It’s experiencing its most unfortunate times, to be honest. And as far as profit is concerned it just keeps the wheel turning barely by the help of schools who bulk order for their libraries and other organizations and some day to day customers. I am doing this because I have nothing to do at my home. Both of my daughters are married now, and my husband died many years ago before the existence of this bookshop. So it is a great time pass for me as I can live doing my ideal thing in this whole world, that is reading books and sit surrounded by them.

Ma’am, what was this book shop like in those days? (She looked at the doors of the shop as if the time has stopped itself and she was seeing her world in the past. After a long pause she said.) Well, when this book shop was opened in the 90’s it was very vibrant. People used to come here very often and it was cheerful. Right now it’s nothing but me, my books and some retro songs that are all left.

Does nobody come here? No, people do come here and buy some books, but now a day it has just become a fashion for people to gift books to others. For many of them, it is a way of perceiving others that they are privileged and aristocrats and they belong to a more superior level of society. So it has now become a fashion to just gift books rather than indeed reading them. Back in the days’ people used to buy books for them to read, to discover new things as it was the only way possible.

Ma’am, what do you think we can do to improve this scenario and how we can cultivate the zeal of reading in our generation and the more recent generation? We have to sow the seeds at an early age when children are growing. What our schools have done is they have introduced some novels for them but made them a part of the syllabus so instead of giving the knowledge and zeal for reading, it turns up as a boring task which has to be completed to score marks. And I have observed quite a few times that the books that are appointed by the schools are not the most satisfactory work of that particular author.

I think what schools should do is that they should specify an author or a range of books from the alike author because I do believe some books are not suited for children of young age but we should make a bigger bunch of books from which the child can pick any book and read. Therefore, what happens is that there would be different ideas and stories around and it will generate a spark in them to read more.

And as far as this generation is concerned, there are quite good readers that read a variety of books but it’s just that their numbers are very few, but I do believe this is changing but at a slow pace.

Ma’am as a lifelong reader who has witnessed changing times and as the owner of this bookshop what would be the one thing that you would like to give me a piece of advice about and to my generation. Just be grateful for the things you have and be humble towards others because what I have felt that this rush in our lives has made us so narrow, that we have forgotten that there are other things than ourselves. And we should try appreciating the beauty of nature that surrounds us. That’s it I guess.

Just be grateful for the things you have and be humble towards others because what I have felt that this rush in our lives has made us so narrow, that we have forgotten that there are other things than ourselves. And we should try appreciating the beauty of nature that surrounds us. That’s it I guess.

Just imagine this — all the greatest minds this planet has ever seen are sitting on a bookshelf waiting for you to discover the secrets of anything and everything that you can dream of, and it’s just a book away. For me reading books is like falling in love. If you haven’t fallen in love with reading books then my darling you haven’t discovered your true love. So keep looking and keep exploring new avenues because I once read somewhere humans have lived here on earth for thousands of years, and it is almost impossible for you to find a problem that hadn’t been solved and written by someone somewhere.”

Many of us complain we don’t have enough money to buy good books as they are costly and I agree with you guys. So if anybody is interested in reading many books for free, then just drop your e-mail in the comment section and I will give you a link from where you can read as many books as you like for free.

Till then stay positive and keep reading.