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Calling all bookworms! Mumbai gets its first 'Little Free Library'

Pick a book, or drop one off in a giant book-shaped box in Bandra's D'Monte Park

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Do your eyes twinkle when you get your hands on a new book? If yes, you are in for a treat.

On Sunday, keep an eye out for a giant book at the D'Monte Park in Bandra (West). A 3-foot tall box in the shape of a book will adorn the park, containing dozens of books for children and grown-ups alike. While 25,000 such free little libraries are installed all over the world, this is Mumbai's first. Anyone can drop or pick up a book.

Vibha Kamat, a Bandra resident and book aficionado thought of installing a mini library of sorts after her friend from Austin in the US, C. Unnikrishnan suggested that she set up a little library on her own. "Marie Paul, a member of the D'Monte Park Road ALM, enthusiastically agreed to grant me space in the garden to set it up," said Kamat.

'Little Free Library' is a global social movement to get more people to read. It is a pop-up library of sorts which can be set up by a book enthusiast in their home, office or a public space like a garden.

Kamat believes that setting up a pop-up free library will attract more people to read as it is for free, with no library or membership fees to be paid.

Kamat's journalist friend Dione Bunsha helped her set up a wooden book box, in which they will stock a motley of authors from Enid Blyton to RK Narayan. "We are stocking a latest work of Tamil author Perumal Murugan's – One Part Woman. All copies of his Tamil version have been withdrawn in India," said Kamat.

Kamat said that people should voluntarily return books to the box after reading them. They may also leave behind books as a contribution and take a book in exchange.

Similar models of libraries are run in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. "People who volunteer to run the libraries are called stewards. We need volunteers to clean the library as well as ensure that the book box is well stocked," said Kamat.

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