books / quiet · cooke town · bangalore
Lightroom Bookstore
The children's bookstore on Lewis Road, Cooke Town. Tara, Tulika, Roald Dahl, and adults pretending they're shopping for their kids.
why we keep going,
Aashti Mudnani opened it in 2013 after seven years of planning. The selection is hand-picked, not algorithmic, and you can tell within five minutes of walking in.
Indian indie publishers — Tara, Tulika, Katha, Zubaan, Pratham — sit next to Eric Carle and Julia Donaldson without the usual hierarchy. Same shelf, same price tag energy.
Small, airy, surprisingly calming for adults. Good for a Saturday morning detour before whatever Cooke Town brunch you'd already booked.
local context
Started in 2013 by Aashti Mudnani on Lewis Road; one of Bangalore's few bookstores explicitly built around children's literature, mixing Indian indie publishers with international classics.
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