Alka Book Center

Alka Book Center is over on P 99 in the Peenya Industrial Area, right near Castle Street in Ashoknagar. It’s an interesting spot for a book shop, being surrounded by all these factories and workshops, but it works for us. We have stacks of books everywhere. Sometimes it feels like there isn't enough shelf space for everything that comes in. We spend a lot of our day just sorting through titles and helping people find what they need for their classes or just for reading at home. The dust gets on everything if we don't wipe the counters down every morning. It’s a quiet place compared to the rest of the industrial area. You can hear the machines running in the distance, but inside here, it’s mostly just the sound of pages turning. We’ve been at this location for a good bit of time. People know they can find us if they take the turn off Castle Street. We don’t have a fancy website or a computer system that tracks everything perfectly. We mostly just know where things are by looking at the shelves. It’s a bit messy sometimes, but that’s how a real bookshop should look. We talk to the regulars who stop in on their way back from work. It’s nice to see the same faces every week. We just try to keep the lights on and the shelves full. It’s a simple way to make a living and we’re happy being here in Ashoknagar.