Bond over literature at this book-sharing community

While practising law in Mumbai, Harini Subramani came across a collective called SwapBook founded by Pravin Subramanian. It was started out of a desire to create a community space that could host compelling literary and intellectual discussions and exchange books while at it. Since Harini’s personal life and portions of work brings her to Chennai and since Pravin was extremely eager to begin a Chennai chapter, they hosted the first meet up in the city in May. Chennaiites Arun Ramachandran, Ashwin Shankar, and Anjana Arunachalam have been driving the reading crowd in Chennai to the monthly meet-up called #BrunchwithBooks.

“The primary idea is to exchange books from one person’s collection to another and thereby, promote a reading culture. Considering the high price of books (originals) and the lack of space at home, this is a viable option for many. You can give the book to another person, who will read it and then send it back on the circuit to someone else. During the meet-ups, we have a brief discussion about the books that we have read, writing styles of authors and more,” says Arun Ramachandran, one of the organisers of SwapBook.  

If you have any books that are rotting away in dark shelves and cupboards and not being re-read, then you should be part of this meet-up.

“We began as a six-member group but now there are about 10-20 members that come for the meet-ups held at Higginbothams in Mount Road. We get to meet and interact with bibliophiles, who share similar tastes in books and literature. What began as an informal group of mutual friends has soon expanded to welcome new additions in subsequent meets,” he explains.

Since the members have expressed their wish to shift the venue of the meet-up, the organisers are looking for a spot for the upcoming event to be held on November 24. They alsohave a page on Facebook where they update about the monthly meet-ups.