If you’re a book-lover, the only thing more terrifying than dog-eared pages is running out of books to read. Let’s face it, books can get pretty expensive. And libraries have become a thing of the past. What’s a speed reader to do these days? Bookchor’s Lock the Box is here to put an end to your woes.
You’ve heard of books by the kilo, but have you heard of books by the box? That’s what Lock the Box offers you. A chance to buy a box full of books any book at a fixed price.
How does it work, you ask? You choose one of three boxes the Odysseus Box, which costs Rs 999, the Perseus Box, which costs Rs 1,499, or the Hercules Box, which costs Rs 2,499. You then proceed to fill it with as many books as the box will physically permit. The only condition is that you should be able to close the box flat. And you get to leave with all of those books!
Hyderabad’s first edition of Lock the Box launched at Vasavi Kalyana Mandapam on Friday. As the clock struck nine, book-hoarders trickled in wearing determined looks of self-control that faded away the moment they stepped into the hall filled with thousands of books old and new. The first day saw a few hundred people leaving with boxes full of books and smiles on their faces. The organisers expect a larger crowd over the weekend.
The books and authors on offer include Penguin Classics, Jeffery Archer, Jody Picoult, children’s books, and even Hitler’s autobiography. Though college students, parents, and school teachers made up a majority of the people who showed up on the first day of the event, there were visitors as young as six, and some as old as 60 seen browsing through the titles.
After hearing about the grand success of Lock the Box in Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Ahmadabad, Hyderabad’s readers have been waiting with bated breath for the event to be organised in the city.
“I have been waiting for over six months now. I didn’t even need a Facebook reminder. I have bought the Perseus Box, and I’m just sorting and prioritising the books I’ve picked,” says 23-year-old hardware engineer John Benedict.
Alok Raj Sharma, the co-founder of BookChor.com, has been busy managing volunteers, manning the payment desk, and overseeing the crowd since the early hours of the day. Taking five minutes off, he tells us how he came up with the idea. “Bookchor came before Lock the Box. I was in the fourth year of my graduation, and we were travelling from Gurgaon to Delhi to buy second-hand books when I came up with the idea of building an online platform for the hassle-free sale and purchase of second-hand books. Recently, we came up with the idea of Lock the Box. If a book fits in the box, it’s yours. No questions asked,” he says.
