Dispatches from Champaca | July 22

Hello fellow book lover,

Have you been reading anything interesting this month? We’ve been spending some time shelving books and filling up our bookshelves. We have a new classics shelf at Champaca! It’s filled with the Penguin Clothbound Classics and the Penguin Drop Caps collection. Both of these are beautifully produced collector’s editions that we’re thrilled to be stocking in our store. Some of our team’s favourite books from this pile are Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, and of course, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland! We’re very excited to re-read these books, and experience them all over again. 

Do you have a favourite classic novel? Tell us what you love about it. Click on the link to share your thoughts!

We had a packed audience this month for our event with oral historian and author Aanchal Malhotra on her new book In The Language of Remembering – a book that examines the legacy of partition through narratives of survivors and subsequent generations. Another super fun event we had early this month was with Nandita Iyer for her latest book This Handmade Life, a guide to seven hands-on activities like pickling, gardening, making sourdough that readers can take up at their own pace. 

One month into reviving our children’s library, we’ve also been thinking of how children’s books manage to pack a ton of emotion and in such simple ways. To highlight some of our favourite children’s books, we’ve started a new series on Instagram in which we recommend books every Friday morning. You can dip into them with your little one or by yourself. At Champaca, we believe there is no age limit for reading children’s books!

And finally, are you reading with us for the #ChampacaReadingChallenge? The last prompt we shared was to read a book with a woman detective. We have some good-looking books by author Kerry Greenwood featuring the detective Miss Phryne Fisher, a feisty and glamorous 1920s detective. If you are a fan of the TV show ‘Killing Eve’, you can also pick up the novel by Luke Jennings that it is based on. It’s a fast-paced thriller where Eve Polastri is slowly falling for the woman she’s supposed to be tracking down. 

If you haven’t been able to read along so far, it’s never too late to join the challenge. The idea is for us as readers to discover new authors and books from across the world. We encourage you to go through our prompt list, and begin reading based on what interests you. 

You can always find more of our recommendations, and all updates from the store on our social media!