Pick Up Secondhand Books At Prithvi Theatre For INR 100 A Pop

The legendary Prithvi Theatre houses a quaint and tiny bookshop, Paperbacks@Prithvi, and we love its collection of books.

The bookshop at the Prithvi Theatre, we’ve been told has been inspired by the National Theatre on the Southbank of Thames in the heart of London – a space dedicated for cultural activities from catching plays to getting a quick bites at the cafe or browsing through the bookshop. Similarly, Prithvi Theatre, with its cafe and bookshop aims to do the same, provide a cultural space for the audience.

Paperbacks offers a really interesting collection of books and DVDs alike. This homely, crammed for space bookshop is full of shelves as you enter, and they have a no phone-no photography policy, in addition to keeping your excited decibels as low as possible. The DVDs range from old Bollywood classics to Casablanca, to selections from the mid-90s, though it’s a very limited collection.

Apart from the recent releases and the Penguin classics, there’s also a bargain counter which includes second-hand acquired books starting at INR 100 and upwards. We came across a few selections of Albert Camus, Sean’s Berlin to Baghdad, Amitav Gosh and many more other Asian authors like Mantoo, Tagore, Satyaji Ray, R.K Narayan.

We also found a stack of graphic novels on the shelves, and immediately picked up a copy of The Complete Maus by Art Spielgelman for INR 1,000. The manager of the bookshop, Usman, who’s been a journalist for over 13 years now, takes special interest in curating the books – diversifying genres as much as possible.

Though Prithvi Theater is possibly one of the most well-known places one must visit in Mumbai – the bookshop just stands in its shadow. It has a wonderful selection, and honestly, we could spend hours browsing through its wooden shelves, and then head to the cafe to have a bowl of hummus.