Chennai’s broke bibliophiles unite

Brought together by a common love for books and deals, the group became a community of sorts, with chapters springing up in each city, recalled Solomon Manoj, an HR professional at an IT firm and the admin of the Broke Bibliophiles group. “Meeting a fellow booklover seemed like a good idea. The chapters came up in nine Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Indore, Bengaluru and Chennai among others. In the city, the chapter officially began in May 2016. Initially, we had around 15 people and we met at a café once a month on the first Sunday. But as members grew, we had to scout for a bigger space and ended up meeting at the SemmozhiPoonga or shuttle between the I Love Read library in Besant Nagar and Little Love Library in Anna Nagar,” he said, adding that the group is an open one, with not only discussions about books and nuances of publishing — including book cover design or process of publishing — but also sessions with authors, on their lives and tomes. 

One of the group meetings saw a bunch of bibliophiles heading to the Besant Nagar beach, armed with their favourite book for a reading session. Inspired by this, Swetha Mohan, founder of the Little Love Library in Anna Nagar, started a weekly silent reading session every Saturday at the Tower Park. “I was inspired by the beach session and since I couldn’t visit the beach often, I felt we could have such sessions at the park. In June last year, we started the sessions every Saturday — from 6 am to 8am, where people could bring their own books or take from a pile of 40 books, which I curated from my library. This is followed by an hour-long discussion. We have close to 10 members regularly attending these sessions. Since it is a park, I ensure that there are books on health and fitness as well as some for children. From this January, we are having weekly themes, which is generating a lot of interest and leading to more focussed discussions. This week’s theme is animals, birds and insects,” said Swetha.

For the second anniversary, the Broke Bibliophiles have a line up of events. “Apart from the regular, monthly meeting on May 6 (at the I Love Reads library from 4 pm to 7 pm), where there will be a cake and tons of celebrations, we are also organising a field visit for the members this Saturday. We will be visiting the Tara Books outlet, specialising in handmade and screen-printed books, and also get a guided tour of their press. Through the group, we also encourage people to buy from local book stores like Giggles, ensuring that we do our bit to keep the neighbourhood bookstores from fading away into oblivion,” added Solomon.