A community of readers, not just a library.

I’m Shruti Nallappa, the founder of The Town Library.

I have always believed that books have a way of finding us at the right time.

Sometimes, they give us an escape. Sometimes, they give us answers. And sometimes, they simply give us a quiet place to be.

But somewhere along the way, I started wondering — what if a library could be more than just a place filled with books?

What if it could be a place where people came to slow down, discover stories, meet other readers, have conversations, and feel like they belonged?

That thought became The Town Library.

I wanted to create a space in Chennai that felt warm, welcoming and personal. Not an intimidating place where you felt you had to know what you were looking for, but a space where you could walk in, browse the shelves, pick up a book simply because the cover caught your attention, and stay for a while.

And so, The Town Library began in Kotturpuram with shelves of carefully chosen books and, more importantly, a hope of building a community around them.

Over time, I realised that the most beautiful part of TTL wasn’t the number of books on our shelves. It was the people who walked through our doors.

Readers who came in for one Sunday and became members. Children discovering stories for the first time. Strangers becoming friends over a shared favourite. Conversations that began with a book and somehow went much further.

Of course, there are still days when I walk into TTL, look at the shelves and think about how this started with just an idea.

And then I see…