March
7, 2021
8 min read
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Decluttering expert Marie Kondo recommends letting go of books that no longer has value, and as an avid reader who actually doesn’t mind giving my books a “new home,” I have often found that it’s often difficult to find simple avenues to do just that. But now, there’s hope: a new startup, Bookends, homegrown in the UAE, offers a digital platform to buy and sell secondhand books, with shipping and delivery available all over the UAE. Founded by Somia Anwar and Grace Karim, the duo’s love for nourishing their kids’ reading habits ignited the motivation to launch a platform for affordable used books in the UAE. “As moms, we have always encouraged our kids to read more,” Karim says. “New books are expensive, and kids outgrow them very quickly. They need new books that cost a lot of money, and we struggle with shelf space.” It’s to tackle this issue that Anwar and Karim started to think of ways they could refresh each other’s book collections in inexpensive ways, and after countless talks over coffee, the friends-turned-business partners set out to build a used bookstore. Though the brick-and-mortar store did garner a positive response in the beginning, the logistics aspect didn’t quite work out, and that business didn’t pan out.