Coffee & Books! These Cosy Book Cafes In The City Are Perfect For Some Me-Time

One of the oldest and most popular bookstore-cum-café on Park Street, it is a haven for book lovers. If the rains are showing no signs of stopping, worry not, you can spend hours in here gazing through countless books, magazines and memorabilia. Fill your cart with books you wish to buy or browse through and head over to the top floor for a steaming hot cup of Bollywood masala mix cha and barbequed chicken sausages.

If you are a Feluda fan then there is no better retreat to enjoy the rains than this one. Everything, from the walls to the cushions to the menu card is adorned with the iconic Bengali detective Feluda’s stories. The bookshelves are filled with works of Rabrindranath Tagore, Sherlock Holmes and Satyajit Ray. Munch on a chicken salami sandwich and sip on hazelnut coffee while relishing a classic read.

Eat, drink and read to your heart’s content here while watching the raindrops dripping down the window pane. Filled with all genres of books and magazines, Café Story is a book lover’s paradise. Pick up your favourite read with a plate of crispy chilli potato and masala chai to go with it.

A quaint hangout with an ambience so calm and quiet that the only sound you will hear is that of roaring thunder and lashing rain outside. In here, you will be surrounded with with quirky graffiti, Bengali poetry and posters of Satyajit Ray, Sukumar Ray and Rabindranath Tagore. Bookworms are sure to be spoilt for choice as their bookshelves are equally impressive filled works of writers such as Sunil Gangopadhyay, Tagore and Subodh Sarkar. Borrow your read and dig into a platter of chello kebab with a mug of hot chocolate.

If the kalboishakhi jhor has got you all flustered, the vibrant and welcoming interiors of this place will instantly calm your nerves. The variety of books here will leave you spellbound. Time will fly (roads will dry up too!) as you spend hours sifting through all the reading material. There is free WiFi too, in case you wish to Google a book for a quick review. Once you have decided on a read, indulge yourself with some cheesy fries and a hot brew.

Are you a tea-guzzler, book-devourer and rain-lover all rolled in one? Then Manjushree is just the place for you when it is raining cats and dogs. The place oozes sophistication with its Parisian-style décor, glass windows, high-back lounging chairs and shelves full of classic reads. Sip on rose earl tea in a white and gold rimmed cup with one eye on the rain (through huge glass windows) and the other on Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart.

If there is a café that is meant to be visited particularly during a heavy downpour then this is it. Tastefully done up in happy colours with amazing paintings, quirky artworks on the wall and in-vogue book shelves, Artsy is the place to be when you wish to enjoy the kalboishakhis to the fullest. Plonk yourself on the huge sofa beanbag with a book from their shelf cradling in your lap and the warmth of coffee filling in yours senses.

If you are big on wanderlusting but don’t really enjoy wandering about in the rain, then hop into Travelistan, Kolkata’s first travel-themed cafe. The traveller as well as the book lover in you are in for a treat here as their book shelves are adorned with great travel reads like Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries, Dui Chakaye Duniya by Bimal Mukherjee, Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, Syed Mujtaba Ali’s seminal book on his travels to Afghanistan, compiled travel writings of Nabaneeta Dev Sen & Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and also several Feluda books with Satyajit Ray’s trademark cover art. Teleport as you leaf through the pages while taking generous gulps of authentic Bengali chai. The tea they serve comes from some of the best estates in Bengal.

A minimalist and aesthetically beautiful setting (very Scandanavian, in fact) with none of the ostentatiousness of a commercial cafe, The Lighthouse Cafe is your place to check if you're looking for some p&q with a healthy brew of coffee to sip. Built around a visual arts space, this cafe-cum-bookstore is a great place to lay your hands on rare and niche books (like art journals, and Tara's fabulous graphic books). Pick one of the art journals for some interesting insight to new-age photography and sip on some amazing chemex brew or Kyoto-style cold brew for a cosy afternoon out.

Potboiler Coffee House is every bibliophile and coffee lover's dream come true! While a monochrome wall art explaining the coffee-making process will greet you as you step inside, the anatomy of a bookworm wall art will astound you with its accuracy. Potterheads! There's a section near the huge glass windows, decked up with a string of lights hanging from the ceiling, with a wall displaying our favourite Dumbledore-Snape dialogue - After all this time? Always. Coming to the menu, or should we say 'literary' menu. Sample this: To Kill A Macchiato, The Latte Of The Rings, Murder On Orient Aero-Press, The Scarlet Bean, The Old Man And The Tea, The God Of Small Darjeelings - these are all names of the coffee and tea they serve. Sip on and read on, we say!

Tribe Cafe (located bang opposite the Arambagh food mart near Momo I Am) is a splash of colours, most of these colours are thanks to this wall full of books. It's quite a collection from what we can tell. From popular ones like Dan Brown to least expected ones like Elizabeth von Arnim. There's something for every kind of book lover. Apart from tea and coffee, they have a variety of shakes, slushes, mocktails and smoothie bowls. The all day breakfast menu is great too! What I really recommend you don't miss is the salad jar/bowl section. I discovered my recipe for a perfect evening at Tribe - Rainbow Salad to go with my Sally Rooney novel. What's yours?