BANGALORE: The IT capital has less than half the population of the Delhi National Capital Region and Mumbai. It's smaller than Kolkata. Yet, it's today the biggest market for books in India. And publishers say it has among the most sophisticated and discerning readers.

For Flipkart, India's biggest bookseller, Bangalore accounts for its biggest sales, followed by Mumbai and Delhi. For rival online retailer Amazon, Bangalore is a clear leader, followed by Hyderabad and then Mumbai. The company says in the past six months, Bangalore has contributed almost twice in terms of units sold as compared to Hyderabad.

For Hachette India, which publishes brands like John Grisham, Asterix, Enid Blyton, Stephen King, and Robert Ludlum, Bangalore accounts for 16%-18% of its all-India business. "This would be the picture by and large for trade publishers," says Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India. "For a single city, that is incredibly high. Mumbai would follow Bangalore, and Delhi next; the business from these other cities would be 2-3 percentage points lower than from Bangalore."

He says Bangalore is today what Kolkata was some decades ago. The West Bengal capital was once the hub of literature and literary activities, including the legendary Kolkata Book Fair that's said to be the most attended book fair in the world. "Kolkata's fallen off hugely. People there hardly buy books anymore. The number of stores has barely changed in the past 50 years," he says.

Bangalore too has seen some stores close. But it has also seen the addition of many, despite the onslaught of online retailers. Sapna Book House has been expanding. Newer, special interest stores have emerged like The Entertainment Store on Church Street for comics and collateral, and Light Room in Cox Town and Kutoohala in Basavanagudi for children's books. Bangalore perhaps has the highest children's-only stores anywhere, and those with a big focus on children's books like Atta Galatta and Bookstop, both in Koramangala.

Most attribute this phenomenon to the emergence of Bangalore as a city with a strong base of young, working professionals over the past decade, thanks to the IT revolution. "Disposable incomes are high, and people are electronically well connected (to make online purchases)," says Anand Padmanabhan, head of sales, Penguin India. For Penguin's sales through physical stores, Delhi and Mumbai are its top markets, but Padmanabhan says Bangalore could be the top market for online retail.

Anil Goteti, director-digital, Flipkart, says Bangalore's most comfortable buying online, and that partly explains why it's at the top of its book sales.

Aroon Raman, a Bangalore-based entrepreneur, who has published two thrillers in the past two years, with his biggest sales coming from Bangalore, says the young and affluent in the city love thrillers that are quick reads. "Books sell like consumer products in Bangalore. But I think it's still Kerala and West Bengal that treat books in a personalized way; that's where literary fiction like those of Shashi Deshpande and Arundhati Roy work best," he says.

Abraham says he judges a city's vibrancy by the quality and depth of stock of its second-hand bookstores. "Bangalore is taking on the mantle once held by Kolkata with its Free School Street and Chennai with Moore Market. In most cities, used bookstores predominantly keep textbooks or surplus stocks. In Bangalore, Blossom, Bookworm and others around Church Street are easily the best used bookstores in India. It's not just the ubiquitous bestseller but the rarity that one will find. I built back my Richard Armour and classic comics collection from here. I've even found a couple of great first edition rarities like Gone with the Wind," he says.

Mayi Gowda, who started Blossom 12 years ago after being a roadside vendor of books to pay off his engineering college fees, uses a network of raddi (scrap) pickers in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi to find rare books much sought after by his customers. "These raddi pickers have some idea of which books are good. I sometimes tell them what I need," says Gowda.

This young, soft-spoken man is intensely passionate about what he does, the quintessential Bangalorean who has made the city what it is in the world of books.

