The uber-cool book store is here

The new Landmark is big and attractive, but it does not compromise on the store’s eclectic edge

You go to Landmark when you know it’s just about time for the new Alice Sebold to arrive in India or when, after reading the Lounge column Cult Fiction, you want to get your hands on AbsoluteWatchmen. No book store in Mumbai—perhaps even in India—can match Landmark’s eclectic collection of literary fiction and graphic novels. It has been the zany, cool intellectual’s destination.

But the store in Andheri is also a mini retail paradise—the latest Hidesign bag as easily visible to shoppers as the new Yann Martel or David Mitchell cover. You have to negotiate screaming children and heavy plastic bags hanging from tired hands to make your way to the books section of the store in order to unearth the best. Like most big book-store chains across the world, Landmark believes a family has different kinds of shoppers and the bibliophile (nerd) will only shop at Landmark if the entire family gets to shop there too.

At the new Landmark in Palladium, Phoenix Mills, in central Mumbai, there is enough space and shelf for all kinds. The 42,000 sq. ft store, sprawled across the basement of Palladium, stocks at least 5% more in all categories than the other store in Mumbai—and all the 14 other stand-alone outlets in India.

Full report here Mint