Hi Guys!! Are there certain places you just can’t miss visiting during trips to your hometown either because that particular place would have played a huge role influencing your early days or simply because they help change your state of mind from normal day to day life?! For me, the place I’m gonna write about today, Odyssey Bookstore, is special to me as it comes under all the above mentioned factors.

My mom and I visited the bookstore after almost 5 years. As a 16 year old now, irrespective of whether I’ve been reading often enough or not these days, I still have the same eagerness and excitement as I did when I was a child to visit a library/bookstore 😁.

The trend of ordering books online has become extremely common these days, especially after the COVID pandemic, but 10 years ago, we used to drop in at Odyssey Bookstore located in Adyar, Chennai, during each visit, and buy loads of books from there, which has helped cultivate the habit of reading in me.

If you’ve read books of ‘Winnie the Pooh’, you would have read about Pooh Bear’s special place in the Hundred Acre Wood, which he referred to as his ‘thinking spot’, where he’d be able to get answers to all his problems. I was gifted two Winnie the Pooh books when I was around 3 or 4 years old. So my mom and I would read the book as a bedtime story (although my mom would do most of the reading back then🤣), and I’d sit with a mug of warm hot chocolate in hand.

The ‘thinking spot’ phrase stuck to my mind, and I used to always tell my mom that a library or a bookstore is my thinking spot as I was a voracious reader as a 10 year old. I could sit at one place for hours to complete reading half a book in a day! Grade 9 was conducted online for me during my Abu Dhabi years, due to the COVID pandemic and as you progress to higher grades you’d receive more projects from school and have extra classes, due to which your other hobbies and passions might take a setback, and I guess that’s what happened to me as I have not been able to read much the past 2-3 years. I completed reading almost 3 books in a week, last year when I was down with COVID, after which we shifted back to India, so adapting to my new school here and managing studies did put a pause to reading for me but I’m determined now to get back to reading at least once in a while, if not as often as before.

A small section with books signed by their respective authors…

Fiction Books…

Until last time, I’d head to the first floor once we enter the store as that’s where the children’s section is, but this time I spent most of the time in the ground floor as that’s were the books for teenagers and the ones I wanted were.

When I was in Grade 2 in Cambodia, our school allowed students and parents to borrow books and use the library together after school hours. I fondly remember going along with my mother to the school library where we’d choose the books we wanted, spend some time in the reading area and then get the books we wished to take home issued to us by the school librarian. Sometimes, we’d head to nearby cafés, including Blue Pumpkin, while waiting for my dad to pick us up on the way home from office. Blue Pumpkin was my favourite spot for ice cream!! These visits to the school library along with my mom still remains as a fond memory as she would be the one introducing me to new books and authors each time.

Chennai Authors…

Children’s Fiction (2nd floor)…

Last time we visited the store, the first floor had more collections of books for kids than now. This particular section in the pic below is where I’ve spent the most time during each visit to the store when I was younger. I was a fan of Enid Blyton’s writings and was introduced to the Malory Towers series, The Magic Faraway Tree Collection, St. Clare’s series, The Naughtiest Girl, The Secret Seven and The Famous Five. The Naughtiest Girl Series was my favourite (though I wasn’t really naughty when I was a kid😁).

Business and Management books…

Although I’ve ordered books from Amazon too, I feel the satisfaction level is way more higher when you physically visit a bookstore, spend hours there flipping through as many books you want, and finally purchase the one you wish for, even though buying stuff online is considered an easier option these days!!! There’s just something about flipping through the pages of new books that gives me happiness 😊.

Tamil books…

Non-fiction…

Contemporary fiction…

Health and Fitness…

My mom purchased a book on history and we bought few books for my dad too. I wanted to buy four books in the pics below, but stuck with the two books in the last pic as it would be tough carrying many books while returning back once my vacations are over and decided to order the other two on Amazon when required😉.

That’s it for this post guys!! Hope you liked it. Visiting the bookstore made us feel productive and made our day better! Have you read any of the books in the pictures above?! Do let me know the names of those books in the comments section! I hope this write-up was helpful by showing you guys new books to add to your booklists!!

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