Boighar Books

Boighar Books

Pull a book off our shelf.

Ira at the front table — ask her what to read next.
On the reading table

Novels

The Tram to Shyambazar

by Anirban Sen-Dey

Three generations of the Basu family share one flat, one tram line and one very stubborn grandmother. A warm, funny novel about the year the trams almost stopped running in north Kolkata.

312 pages · Paperback · Kite Press · 2025

₹499
The book's page →

Pull any spine from the shelf — it opens here.

Sections

Browse by section

The shop has four sections, each with its brass label. Choose one and the shelf and the tables below keep only its books.

On the tables

All the books

The same twelve, laid face up. Every cover here is set by us in the book's own colour.

12
The Tram to ShyambazarAnirban Sen-Dey

Anirban Sen-Dey

The Tram to Shyambazar

Novels312 pagesPaperback

Kite Press · 2025

Three generations of the Basu family share one flat, one tram line and one very stubborn grandmother. A warm, funny novel about the year the trams almost stopped running in north Kolkata.

₹499
Salt on the VerandahMeenakshi Rao

Meenakshi Rao

Salt on the Verandah

Novels268 pagesPaperback

Coromandel Books · 2024

Two sisters return to their mother's house in Mangaluru to sell it, and spend a monsoon finding reasons not to. Quiet, sharp and full of the smell of the sea.

₹450
Eleven Rivers, One MotherKamalini Mitra

Kamalini Mitra

Eleven Rivers, One Mother

In Translation384 pagesPaperback

Translated from Bengali by Sudipta Ghosh · Ferry Books · 2025

A boatwoman's daughter crosses the Sundarbans to find the brothers her mother gave away. First time in English, in a translation that keeps the river's rhythm.

₹550
The Weaver's LedgerH. S. Nagaraj

H. S. Nagaraj

The Weaver's Ledger

In Translation228 pagesPaperback

Translated from Kannada by Priya Hegde · Ferry Books · 2024

An account book kept by a silk weaver in Molakalmuru becomes, page by page, the story of a whole street. Short, exact and unexpectedly moving.

₹420
Songs the Ferryman KeptBijoy Mohapatra

Bijoy Mohapatra

Songs the Ferryman Kept

In Translation176 pagesPaperback

Translated from Odia by Lipika Das · Ferry Books · 2025

Linked stories from a river crossing near Cuttack, each one a passenger's life told in the time it takes to reach the other bank.

₹380
On Borrowing BooksNeel Chowdhury

Neel Chowdhury

On Borrowing Books

Essays192 pagesPaperback

Paper Lantern · 2024

Fourteen essays on lending libraries, pavement stalls, books never returned and the friends who kept them. A love letter to College Street and every reader who ever said "I'll give it back".

₹399
Paper BoatsIshita Bose

Ishita Bose

Paper Boats

Poetry96 pagesPaperback

Small Hours Press · 2025

Forty short poems about childhood monsoons, school notebooks and the people we fold into memory. A book to keep by the bed.

₹299
The Lantern HoursFarhan Qadri

Farhan Qadri

The Lantern Hours

Poetry128 pagesPaperback

Small Hours Press · 2024

Ghazals and free verse written during the power cuts of one Lucknow summer. Read them slowly, aloud if you can.

₹320
Notes from a TerraceLekha Menon

Lekha Menon

Notes from a Terrace

Poetry144 pagesPaperback

Small Hours Press · 2025

Very short poems — some only three lines — written on a Kochi terrace over a year of mornings. Malayalam on the left page, English on the right.

₹340
Staff picks

Cards on the shelf edge

Each of us writes a card for the book we can't stop recommending. They hang under the shelf in the shop; here they are too.

The Tram to Shyambazar

Read it on a rainy Sunday with the windows open. I laughed out loud on page twelve and had to put it down for a minute on page two hundred.
— Ira, front desk

Eleven Rivers, One Mother

My grandmother would have argued with every chapter and then read it twice. The translation sings — I checked it against the Bengali.
— Somnath, translations

Paper Boats

Ninety-six pages and I have read it four times. Give it to someone who says they don't read poetry.
— Nandini, poetry & small books
How a book gets here

From a reader to your shelf

Nothing goes up on the shelf until it has been through these four hands.

  1. I

    Someone reads it

    One of us reads the whole book. If none of us finishes it, it does not go on the shelf.

  2. II

    It earns a card

    The reader writes a shelf-talker by hand: who the book is for and when to read it.

  3. III

    It goes on the shelf

    Spine out, between two books it will get along with. Twelve at a time, changed with the month.

  4. IV

    It leaves in newsprint

    Your order is wrapped in yesterday's newspaper and tied with string, with a copy of the card tucked inside.

Our word

What every book comes with

From readers

Visit the shop

Come and sit in the reading chair

We are a short walk from the Bull Temple. Come and browse, or write to us for a book we don't have on the shelf — we will try to find it.

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