22. Looking Back on 4 Years of Project Bibliotherapy
...and a fun celebration!
Dear Reader,
Last month, on the 22nd, Project Bibliotherapy turned 4!
You may know us only in our current avatar, but it’s been a long, strange trip getting here.
We’re a brand that helps people build a better reading habit through our ‘Readers of 42’ community.
Nitin Goel is the Reader-in-Chief and Nandini Swaminathan is the Storyteller-in-Chief.
If you’re new here, consider subscribing :) you’ll get our updates straight to your inbox.
Chasing the lockdown blues away, one book at a time
On March 22, 2020 (the Year We All Wish to Forget), a certain hoopy frood realised that the world was suddenly dealing with a strange new virus. It was a situation that sounded straight out of a dystopian novel. For the first time, reality truly was stranger than fiction.
So, on March 22, when the lockdown was imposed across India, and nothing made sense anymore; Nitin took out every single book he owned, laid them out on his bed, and camped on a mattress on the floor.
That’s because there was an idea, gradually brewing in that frood’s mind. He knew he wanted to do something with books.
While he decided what that ‘something’ would be, he came across this New Yorker article, and the name ‘Project Bibliotherapy’ was thus inspired.
It began on Instagram, and this is a philosophy that’s still at the heart of what we do:
Project Bibliotherapy: Chapter One, 2020
The Instagram bio for Project Bibliotherapy back then was: chasing the blues away, one book at a time. And that was what we both did, though neither knew of the existence of the other at the time.
Here’s a peek at some of the fun stuff done during the initial days: (all our archives can be accessed on our stck.me page)
The Origin Story: A peek into the Reader-in-Chief’s life and the events that led to Project Bibliotherapy.
Read More with Project Bibliotherapy and The Bibliotherapy Library: A look at the idea in the early days of conception, which personally helped me (Nandini) and paved the way for me to get more involved with the Project.
The Bibliophile’s Guide to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: One of our first resources/compilations comprising a ton of rabbit holes to fall into and discover the world of Douglas Adams and the Greatest Book in the Galaxy.
The Bibliophile’s Bedtime Stories: A series where Nitin brought back to life, for the first time ever, a treasured gem from both of our childhoods.
The Dunno’s Adventures series by Nikolai Nosov was published in the erstwhile USSR and we’re reviving gems like this for a new generation of kids. You can explore more over at our other Substack, The Kidlit Corner.The Bibliotherapy Quiz Contest: You’ve heard of Taco Tuesday but we bet you haven’t checkout Tazo Tuesdays. For those of you born in the 00s, a Tazo was a little piece of round plastic with notches on it, and each of them had a different cartoon character on it. They came free with Lay’s chips and were a huge craze for us 90s kids.
Charles Bukowski on acing job interviews: This one uses wisdom from the late writer and applies it to modern day corporate interview processes.
On that complicated four-letter word: the one that begins with the letter ‘L’ - full of related recommendations :)
The Bibliotherapy Jukebox: Before deciding to work on separate Substacks - we’d also share music and pop culture reccos apart from reading. Here’s a post you might enjoy (and find things to add to your playlist!)
The Bibliotherapy Walkman/Audible Top 9: Reading is reading, whether paperback or hardcover, Kindle or Audible, book or graphic novel. Here’s a compilation of our top recommendations for Audible audiobooks.
Project Bibliotherapy: Chapter Two, 2021
By 2021, the Project had gathered a large reader list, both on Instagram and on stck.me, a platform created by the founders of Scroll.in.
Then, in February ‘21, when people started to relax, naively convinced the worst of the pandemic was over, our paths crossed.
From one to two
It all started with a bored, newly-single me, the pandemic cutting short any romantic explorations whatsoever.
I met a few people on dating apps, but no one ever held my interest for long, in my area. So I decided to expand my radius on the app, to 40km, just to know what was ‘out there’. No expectations.
That’s when Nitin’s profile popped up. His profile pic was him reading ‘On the Road’ against an orange wall. Still wary, I scrolled some more, till I came upon the words:
Quotes too much from: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
So far on the apps, I’d never come across someone who loved reading, let alone one of my favourite books of all time. There was also a link to sign up for something called Project Bibliotherapy.
Intrigued, I signed up, and also gave a Superlike for the first time ever, to his profile. I added a hi and a reference to Vogons, so as to confirm that he actually loved the book and wasn’t just posing. What followed was hours and days of refreshingly wonderful conversations.
Our first date was at a park near my house, as it was pandemic time. Something seemed to fall in place instantly, because each of us brought a book for the other, without having discussed this beforehand.
When two readers fall in love, it’s a meeting of minds, where each has worlds they’ve explored, sometimes over and over again, between the pages of countless books. These worlds create a bond between them in a way that can’t be compared to liking the same movie or food.
Just before the second wave of the pandemic, Nitin hosted the very first Guided Reading Meditation as an experiment, at Greenr Cafe in Vasant Vihar. I was enthralled. (It’s now one of our most popular event formats).
Shortly after, the second wave of the pandemic hit here in India.
It was the worst of times, but we found hope in keeping each other motivated, so we stayed in touch.
Around this time, the Clubhouse app had started gaining popularity, and Nitin started hosting Guided Reading Meditations virtually on the app. The audio medium made it feel like long calls with friends.
It was a wholesome space that brought together a many of us, creating friendships that are still going strong :)
Big shoutout to these Clubhouse peeps: Bala, who is also a Reader of 42 now and was one of our earliest supporters. Also to Varun Gwalani, (he’s a fiction writer whose novel is out now) Anam Fatima, and Varun Vasudev, who happens to be in Vol 4 of our zine.
The 42 Good Reads of the Internet zine: Vol. 1
In July 2021, Nitin created the first ever ‘42 Good Reads of the Internet’ zine.
In those early days we started doing ‘zine drops’ all over Delhi (and Bangalore, when I went there) - leaving the zine at various bookstores and cafes for people to discover.
We also started (safely) attending in-person events a lot more, starting with the Suitable Conversations series of talks with authors at Sunder Nursery, by the literary agency A Suitable Agency, headed by Hemali Sodhi.
The very first author to whom we presented a zine was Manu Pillai, who’s also an acclaimed historian.
We met many authors in the months to follow. They loved the zine, the idea, and that we want to promote reading as a culture.
Project Bibliotherapy: Chapter Three, 2022
Jumpstarting the Project at JLF
In March 2022, we launched the first zine through a guerilla marketing campaign, at the Jaipur Literature Festival. It also happened to be Day One for me to officially join the Project as its Storyteller-In-Chief.
Apart from making it to their festival highlight reel, we finally started getting known as ‘those zine people’. Our first newspaper feature happened around this time as well.
#TheHitchedHikers
The next few months were a crazy rollercoaster ride, when we went from Nitin and Nandini to #TheHitchedHikers, deciding to spend life, the universe and everything together. It started with a certain question posed by Nitin, in a special edition of the book, at the same park where it all began.
Experiments, events and experiences
2022 was the year we launched the Readers of 42: initially with a ‘Pay As You Wish’ model. A huge thanks to all our early supporters :)
We also kickstarted our relationship with Kunzum Books, who opened their first store in Mega Mall, Gurgaon, the same year.
We remain listed on the official Towel Day website under ‘India’ for hosting an event celebrating Douglas Adams on May 25 every year, in association with them and Pan Macmillan India.
This was the year we also extended our reach to Mumbai and Bangalore, where we created pop-ups at the Bombay Zine Fest, and Guided Reading Meditations at The Bookworm, Church Street, Bangalore.
It was a year of a ton of experimentations, valuable learnings about the entire reading ecosystem, learning more about our target audience and gathering Reader feedback.
Project Bibliotherapy: Chapter Four, 2023
2023 was a whirlwind.
We officially launched our Reader Experiences and Vol. 2 of our 42 Good Reads zine with a Guided Reading Meditation.
We redesigned our Readers of 42 program after talking to well-wishers, readers and those from the publishing ecosystem and getting some much-needed insights.
We tied up with brands and organizations that we resonate with by hosting pop-ups in association with them. Starting with leap.club, Opn Art House by Gaysi Family, Bombay Zine Fest, Bangalore Literature Festival and the Goethe Institut. We signed up Readers and understood more about how people read and their goals and pain points.
We read extensively ourselves, and immersed ourselves in every reading and book-related event we could find.
We launched our Readers of 42 program with a fixed annual fee, and finally arrived at its present form in early 2024.
2024 and beyond
Today, we’re a fully registered company with a growing Reader base.
Know more about the Readers of 42 program and sign up here (within India) or here (elsewhere).
Here are glimpses from our 4th year anniversary celebrations :) Thank you to The Brooklyn Creamery for a sweet collab with us for the event: their ice creams are low calorie but high on taste!
A Dramatic Reading with Manjula Padmanabhan
One of my favourite childhood authors, Manjula Padmanabhan (who is also a brilliant artist, playwright and all-round awesome person) shared snippets from her life and her latest fiction novel ‘Taxi’ (available at Kunzum, other leading bookstores and online here) at the event.
We did a dramatic reading together of ‘Taxi’, published by Hachette India, and quite enjoyed it. The plot centres around a young woman named Maddy, who runs a clandestine taxi service in Delhi exclusively for women. She stumbles upon an intriguing opportunity when dealing with a terrible situation in her life, and the book explores all the events that begin from it.
This was followed by a free-flowing discussion on her work and her life with lots of engagement with the audience, and book signings.
If you’d like to explore her work and get your own copy, we highly recommend heading to any Kunzum store near you!
She kindly wrote a wonderful post about the event which you can read below.
Don’t forget to subscribe to her Substack ‘Reading with Friends’ and check out her bibliography here.
Special shoutouts:
To Jai Arjun Singh, for coming by and making our event special :) he is an independent writer, freelance journalist and critic who also wrote two books about Indian films.
To our Readers of 42, Aditi, who’s been rooting for us for a while now, and gifted us beautiful handmade art frames to commemorate our 4th year. Also Akanksha, and her daughter Kaashvi, for all their support through the past few months.
And finally, for you, dear Reader, for being with us and reading with us.
We hope you’re enjoying the journey so far, and promise there’s loads more to come!
— Nandini Swaminathan,
Storyteller-in-Chief,
Project Bibliotherapy
Happy anniversary Froods! Loved reading about the journey so much! ❤️