Welcome to Champaca: a bookstore in the heart of Bengaluru

We are an independent bookstore with two physical stores — in Vasanth Nagar and in Indiranagar — and with an online store that ships across the country.

We are a community of readers, and we choose the books we shelve with care. We believe that a good bookshelf should hold a world of voices and stories, from across time, place, and experience. Our focus is on diversity and curiosity — we hope that you discover something fresh and interesting each time you visit us.

One of our favourite things to do is help you in your discovery — strike up a conversation with one of us, or read the recommendation notes placed around the store, and we’ll help you find the perfect book!

What will you find on our shelves?

We believe that the relatively unheard needs more place on shelves and that no single voice should dominate.

On our shelves, you’ll find books from caste narratives in rural India to dystopian futures where people can move the earth; moving personal memoirs on mental health to poetry bound in sari cloth; and translations from over twenty languages, from India and internationally.

Some of our focus areas are on nature writing, science, reflections on gender and caste, translations from across the world, and history. Each of us that works here also has our own personal favourite ways of reading, too — and our shelves are always growing thanks to our own interest areas, as well as through conversations and recommendations from our community.

We like to support independent and creative work by publishers, artists and individuals. At our stores and on our virtual shelves, you will find exciting and unique books from independent publishers like Tara Books, Panther’s Paw Publication, Reliable Copy, Blaft, and Yoda Press, among many others.

Who are we, and what do we do?

We are independently-owned and women-run, and our team consists of a diverse community of people. We work together in selecting and sourcing the books we stock, and managing the very integral day-to-day activities of running our store. We try to bring the same care and thoughtfulness to all aspects of our work. You can get to know our team and our specific roles and interests here.

We host events and workshops for adults and kids, focused on books or the experience of reading them, both offline (in both our stores) and online. We bring you engaging and meaningful discussions, across a range of topics and genres.

In Vasanth Nagar, we have a small lending library for children. We hope to grow this space to a larger, free community library in the future.

We also provide specialised curation services for organisations or individuals — libraries, birthday presents, holiday gifting. You can find out more about that here or by emailing hello@champaca.in.

What do you support when you support Champaca?

In a culture of quick-access and discounted prices, what we ensure we give you is the joy of discovery.

In supporting us, you support the time of those of us who try to bring you a creative, thoughtful experience. You support the very hard realities of the rents, salaries, bills, and effort that help us ensure you have a wonderful time when you come by.

You help us build and support a community that believes in the importance of diversity and quality. In buying from us, you support each of us who works here. In supporting us, you believe, like us, that books are much more than objects to purchase at competitive prices, but the gifts we give ourselves to grow as individuals and learn.