Higginbothams, Ooty

India's oldest bookselling chain began in Madras in 1844 under Abel Joshua Higginbotham, and this is its outpost in the hills. On Commercial Road, a few steps from the market noise, the Ooty branch keeps shelves ordered neatly by genre, a solid run of Indian authors and a stretch of Nilgiris titles that is hard to assemble anywhere else. It works best the way it always has: somewhere to stand out of the rain on a grey hill afternoon, after Charring Cross, and read the first page of something.

A calm room of shelves a few steps off the market, strong on Nilgiris titles