Books, a click away

Now there’s no excuse for not reading. Those who cite parking woes for not visiting libraries, have to invent a fresh excuse.

Bookandborrow.com brings books to your doorstep. Four friends (Raji Divakar, Anuradha Alagappan, Malvika Mehra and Minnie Amirapu) thought up this online lending library before they learnt that this model had been tried out successfully in Bangalore and Pune.

The online bookstore, inaugurated recently at The Madras Terrace House, addresses the problem of size that Chennai poses. “We have tied up with a courier service and are covering the city outskirts as well,” says Raji. At present, bookandborrow.com has 3,000 titles with a brief summary about each.

Members can select up to four books at a time depending on the schemes they have chosen. They can expect two deliveries a month. But the number of books and the subscription fee vary.

“Lite Reader (scheme) allows the member to have one book at a time. With two deliveries, he gets two books a month. And, 12 in six months.

It is two books at a time and 24 books in six months for the Relaxed Reader; three books at a time and 36 in six months for the Regular Reader; four books at a time and 48 in six months for the Super Reader,” says Malvika. “We don’t charge any late fee or fix any reading time.”

The efficiency of online stores depends largely on the website. Bookandborrow, which opens to a burst of lemon yellow, quickly settles down to providing capsules of information in short pages. A list of categories enables the reader to march straightaway to the subject of his choice.

Without too much information vying for attention, navigating through the website is not onerous.

Special sections (“Author in Focus” and “Book of the Week”) don’t hijack the reader away from the main agenda.

“Our goals include engaging the readers in offline book-related activities,” says Anuradha.

“Book reading sessions and reading groups are among our plans for the future,” says Minnie.

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