There are several people who would rant on social media or other mediums about the social illnesses that prevail, but very few who follow through their vision and actually do something constructive with it. Junaid Akram definitely falls in the second lot of people, with some humour on top!
Earlier in the year, Junaid Akram treated the bibliophiles in the country with an offer they couldn’t refuse, as he decided to put his 20kg luggage allowance to good use.
On his Facebook page he had posted, “Hi! I’m travelling back to Karachi this weekend and I have 20kgs of luggage available. Instead of carrying Badaam, Pistay for someone else, I have a better idea. I am headed to Bookworld by Kinokuniya – the largest bookstore in Dubai, so if you’re an avid reader and really wanted a book, which is not available in Pakistan, please let me know. I’ll get it for you! Don’t worry about the cost; kindly accept it as a gift from me.”
According to Junaid, he took this step to encourage the youth to read more. In order to further engage the young people in his quest to encourage reading, he has launched a library, website and web application called ‘A Novel Idea’. The app is basically an extension of the library he launched in August with the same. Since there’s no delivery service yet, this is only applicable to the residents of Karachi. Library is open 6 days a week from Monday to Saturday from 10AM to 6PM.
Read: A Startling Revelation: Online Chat Rooms Still Exist and Are Thriving!
A Novel Idea holds the title of being Pakistan’s first book swapping library, and offers its services for novels as well as course books. Though there was a startup BookwormPK that launched with the same idea back in 2015, but there is no information available on their development. The app for the library is available both on iOS and Android. We haven’t tested this one out for ourselves yet, but we would love to hear from any bookworms out there who have on the application usage at least!
Image source: A Novel Idea
