books / quiet · mg road · bangalore
Higginbotham's
The 1905 bookstore on MG Road. Two-storey Palladian building, freshly restored, shelves arranged like a museum, courtyard out back.
why we keep going,
Building went up in 1897 for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee; the bookstore moved in eight years later. The 2017 restoration brought back the original colour scheme and added a graphic-novel section.
Stock is genuinely broad. Fiction, kids, design, gaming, every Indian author you can think of. The children's room is the easiest place to lose half an hour.
Courtyard is the secret weapon. Buy something, sit ten minutes, watch MG Road pass without joining it.
local context
The MG Road branch opened in 1905 and is the oldest surviving bookstore in Bangalore; the parent company at Mount Road, Chennai, dates to 1844 and remains India's oldest bookshop.
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