KKS Murthy of Bengaluru’s iconic Select Book Shop passes away at 95
Historian Ramachandra Guha, a longtime regular at Select, recalled KKS Murthy as a man of enormous charm and civility.
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KKS Murthy, originally an engineer with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, began working alongside his father KBK Rao at the bookstore in the 1970s.“An era ended today,” reads a brief message posted on Monday evening on Select Book Shop’s social media. For the book lovers of the city and loyal visitors to Select, an era has indeed ended with the passing of KKS Murthy, 95, who died on Monday afternoon. Murthy, for many decades, seemed an integral part of Bengaluru itself, just as much as the location of the book store itself on Brigade Road.
Murthy’s final rites will be performed on Tuesday. He is survived by son and co-proprietor K Sanjay.
KKS Murthy, originally an engineer with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, began working alongside his father KBK Rao at the bookstore in the 1970s. Rao, who was an advocate practising in Kurnool, opened Select Book Shop in 1945, operating from a shed on Museum Road. The bookstore underwent several transformations, before finally settling down at its current location in Brigade Road in 1984.
The bookshop has long been famous for the collection curated by KKS Murthy and his son K Sanjay, often including volumes several centuries old, or with copies of books owned or signed by figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore.
The news of his passing led to an outpouring of condolences from those who had come to know him over the decades. Historian Ramachandra Guha, a longtime regular at Select, posted on X, “Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of our city’s legendary bookseller, KKS Murthy. A man of enormous charm and civility, his wonderful Select Bookshop sustained generations of readers in Bangalore and across India. He will be sorely missed.”
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