Indie bookstore opens doors in Hyderabad’s Jubilee Hills

Just in time for Dasara and Deepavali, Hyderabad got a new indie book store. Run by sisters Shilpa and Sapna, the bookstore on Road Number 63A Jubilee Hills is creating a buzz among bibliophiles for the curated collection and the range. Instead of endless rows of shelves with marquee names and mass market paperbacks by Lee Child, Baldacci, Archer, Ludlum etc, the bookstore is a series of rooms with shelves and tables stacked with books.

Book trade is one of the booming markets in India. According to an industry estimate, India’s book market in 2019-20 has been valued at $8.8 billion (the US market was pegged at $27.8 billion in the same period). The Indian book market is expected to grow at compounded annual growth rate of 19.4% between 2023-26. However, a big chunk of book market is school and higher education sector with trade books forming just 4% of the pie.

“The idea of a physical bookstore is that you will make some new discovery. If you know exactly what you want, that’s something else. But if you are looking for something new, this is really the best way to do it,” says Shilpa, who teamed up with her sister to create the bookstore. “We love to read and were missing the touch, feel and smell of books in a bookstore and we thought about it in June and managed to execute it within months,” she informs about the bookstore which is two weeks old.

“I don’t compete with online book stores. I cannot compete with online retailers on price and I am not trying to do that. I exist for readers who want the experience of physical browse that online retailers cannot provide. That’s why we are not selling online. We are here as a physical bookstore; hopefully people will come and enjoy the experience of buying books after browsing,” says Shilpa who earlier worked in the investment and finance space.

Interestingly, the bookstore is named Luna which references the moon as well as the name of Shilpa and Sapna’s father — Sudhakar.