The books on the shelves of Bliss and Paper bookshop have been on a long journey. The bookshop has withstood several location and name changes before re-opening in August 2021 in its current location in Dasman complex. Behind the 13,000 books on its sleek, new bookshelves is an almost two-decade long friendship between the owner Fajer Ahmed and her bookstore mentor Jacob Oommen.
The story began when 16-year-old Fajer, an avid reader, stumbled upon the second-hand bookstore Q8 books on Soor street in Kuwait City, owned then by Jacob.
“Growing up, I read a lot,” Fajer said. “Books were an escape for me. And I did not have money to buy books so I would go to Jacob at the end of the week with whatever money I had to buy books.”
Jacob described his first bookshop as a “hole in the wall”. He ran it for 10 years from 2003 to 2013. “Fajer would come to the store with her school bag. The first books she traded in to buy books were Archie comics,” Jacob remembered. “I started the bookstore with no business knowledge and a whimsical thought – let me try and fail than to always think it should have been something I should have done. It ran very well. I had a lot of fun, I met a lot of people. I wanted to sell it thinking I would take a long sabbatical. I had my day job, travels, a social life and I had other projects I wanted to work on.”
Fajer was newly graduated when Jacob broke the news he wanted to sell the store that had fed her reading habit for 10 years. “I never thought I would open a bookstore but when Jacob said he was closing his bookstore I thought I would love to buy it, but I did not have the money. I had just graduated from law school. My Mum gave me a Rolex as a graduation gift and I said can I have cash instead because I want to buy a bookstore,” she laughed. “My granddad overheard and gave me a sum of money. It was still not enough to set everything up, so my friend Tareq Al-Ibrahim, chipped in”.
Jacob had received several offers from people to buy his bookstore, but he chose to sell it to Fajer. “Every week she would come to the bookstore, she would bring all her friends and she would say this is my favorite place. Although I am sure she said that to every business she went,” Jacob laughed. “Who better to have that place than someone who liked it. Also Fajer was someone who champions equal rights and I thought that was the sort of person who should be running a bookstore. Someone who treated people well. I am proud of the fact that I actually gave it to the right person because it is still running, and I am sitting here and talking to you.”
With a team of volunteers from their circle of friends, 13,000 books were transported to a new location in Bayt Lothan overnight. Fajer named her new store Q8 bookstore. “When I bought it from Jacob the idea behind it was to move it out of the city to make it more of a community and arts center,” she said. Fajer, who is also a practising lawyer, travels to visit the most beautiful books stores in the world, sometimes going to places just because of a bookshop she heard about.
“I noticed the ones that are doing well are community-based bookstores,” she said. Q8 Bookstore moved out of Bayt Lothan after an active public campaign failed to save the historical building from demolition. Jacob and Fajer went their separate ways. Fajer moved the bookstore to Dar Althar Al-Islamiyah in Yarmouk and Jacob went onto manage the Salmiya bookstore Better Books.
But their friendship survived. “Sometimes a year would pass, and we wouldn’t talk but whenever I needed him, he was there,” Fajer said. Fajer contacted him to help her when she re-opened the bookshop in its current location. It was re-branded Bliss and Paper on the suggestion of the marketing team to shake off a reputation of being a pop up as a result of the various moves in a small space of time.
“We want people to come in and read. I did not want something luxurious or something people did not feel comfortable walking into off the street. We never say you have to buy something to read. But I also had to think how I could cover costs. We thought adding a café would be really nice for a bookstore,” Fajer said.
Now book clubs meet there around the tables and chairs thoughtfully placed around the space. They order a coffee and talk. Parents bring their children to browse the English and Arabic books. Sometimes the browsers would buy a book. There are rooms available for rent for meetings and the space has been used for a jazz concert. There is also a room dedicated to Jacob’s antiquarian book collection with rare books about the region. There are also rare copies of the iconic Wizr comic series from the 70s.
Jacob says among new books that come in, there are books that rotate between the used bookstores in Kuwait. “Some of these books have been circulating for 20 years. You see my handwriting in most of them. We see people bring back books and you open it and realize it has come a full circle,” Jacob said.
There is an easy banter of old friends between Fajer and Jacob. “Jacob was more of a mentor. He taught me what he had learned. He did not just sell his store and disappear,” Fajer said.
“I wish that happened,” Jacob laughed.
“I am trying to give it back to him,” Fajer giggled. “I don’t want it,” Jacob insisted.
They hold a copy of Jen Campbell’s “Weird things customers say in bookshops” and the two agree they have heard their fair share of unusual requests. “One customer came in and asked for this fiction book that had a bus in it. Or we have people who come in and ask they are looking for a book, they are not sure what it is about but it is blue,” she laughed and added, “I shouldn’t make fun of the customers.”
Despite the challenges to keep the bookshop running both Fajer and Jacob believe there will always be a place for books in people’s lives. “I don’t believe that there are people who cannot enjoy reading. I believe anyone can enjoy reading if they pick the right book,” Fajer said. “The best part is making friends. My favorite part is when people meet in a bookstore. I am waiting for my first bookstore wedding.”
“It is difficult to keep bookstores like this open and a lot of time and effort goes into keeping it this way,” Jacob said. “Bookshops are essentially places that dish out stories from across the world. And that is where the joy is if you are a storyteller or a story lover. And I think most people are.”
Bliss and Paper is located in Dasman Complex, Jaber Al Mubarak Street. Opening hours are from 12 pm to 10 pm. For more information, please follow @blissandpaper on Instagram. Photography by Chris Johns.
