The English Book Shop

Open since 1952, which makes this shop very nearly as old as the city built around it. It stands near the Neelam cinema block on the Sector 17 plaza, and The Tribune counts it among the stalwarts that gave the young capital its reading habit. The stock is broad rather than boutique (fiction, non-fiction, children's shelves, academic texts and a good stationery counter), and the pace inside is unhurried enough to lose half an hour without noticing. A sensible pause when the plaza's concrete arcades start to blur.

Buying a book here means joining a habit as old as Chandigarh itself