I've fallen in and out of love for reading. The romance began when I was eight, and my parents thought it would be a good idea to get me a library membership, because I'm sure they didn't want shelves to come crumbling down with the sheer weight of bundles of Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene and Franklin W Dixon. But the shelves at a circulating library near home were stronger. Visiting it was a weekly ritual. I can't say the same now.

The Nielsen Bookscan, which monitors data for retail book sales in English worldwide reported an increase of £34 million in sales in 2018 in the UK. With data collected from 6,500 bookstores, the sales in 2018 are likely to cross that of 2016 — the year of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In the US, hardcover sales have risen and the number of independent bookstores have gone up by 5 per cent. Here's what Mumbai's independent bookstore and library owners have to say.