It’s a strange time for the books industry. On the one hand, social distancing, ushered in by the outbreak of COVID-19, has renewed our ap...
It’s a strange time for the books industry.
On the one hand, social distancing, ushered in by the outbreak of COVID-19, has renewed our appreciation for books, trusty companions whom many of us had grown distant from in an age of busy schedules, information overload, and short attention spans. Now, under lockdown, when capitalist time has been disrupted and varying degrees of existential dread mark our days, people seem to be reaching for books like never before – sometimes with the resolute aim of better understanding the present moment, sometimes in the desperate hope of getting away from it.
However, even as reading seems to be on the upswing, brick-and-mortar bookstores across the country were, by and large, been shut for the duration of this lockdown, with books being excluded from the central government’s list of essential items. The only exceptions were bookstores in Kerala, allowed by the state government to remain open for two days a week, and shops selling textbooks for students. Bookshops in other cities slowly came back to limited life in the third phase of the lockdown, though primarily restricting themselves to deliveries.
Still, independent bookstores are likely to be hit particularly hard, since they are not owned by large corporations as...
