From read-aloud sessions to PowerPoint parties: 20 Singapore indie bookshops unite for first Bookshop Day

“I have so many customers coming up to me saying, ‘If you need somebody to look after the store for a couple of hours a day, I can. I’m here. Just call me’,” she said. “Our readers are ready to show up for us, so we want to do this for them, too.”

The organisers also want the event to showcase the breadth of the country’s indie bookshop scene, including smaller and less visible shops that readers may not otherwise encounter. 

And while books can now be bought easily online or borrowed from libraries, they said, independent bookshops offer something beyond the transaction of buying a book.

“If a bookshop closes, you’re not only losing an avenue for the purchase of books,” Ibrahim said. “You’re losing community, you’re losing conversations, you’re losing encounters, you’re losing so much more than an avenue to buy books.”