Natraj Green Bookshop

The green in the name is a promise: this shop specialises in the Himalaya (ecology, wildlife, mountain travel and the writers who worked here). It began as Lala Narain Das's newspaper stall after Partition, became Natraj Publishers, took the Green Bookshop name in the 1990s and is now run by the third generation of the family. Ruskin Bond presides over it in spirit and in print, with shelves of signed copies; he dedicated one book to the late owner Upendra Arora and to booksellers 'who actually care about books and authors'. An hour here is well spent before heading uphill.

Stock up on serious Himalayan reading where Ruskin Bond has signed the shelves