A plug for BooksActually April 28 2014 JY Yang

Breaking my blogging hiatus to stump for my actual favorite bookstore in Singapore BooksActually

Now BooksActually are a fabulous indie bookstore here almost an institution in the local lit scene now. They however have been hit by rent woes in the past because you know Singapore.

So their ambitious new goal this year is to own their own space. No more renting no more worrying about landlords jacking up prices once the lease is up peace of mind to focus more on the business of book selling and book publishing

To this end BooksActually are running a storewide fundraising sale 25 off everything until the end of April. A few days more. When I visited the place on Saturday I found it positively crammed with folk a brilliant sign.

Here are some reasons why you should support BooksActually and support their sale.

1 Because they are a fantastic space for local lit events.

Here is a picture of my face courtesy of my friend Fikri. This was from the latest reading I did at BooksActually as part of the 24Hour Bookstore event on the 18th of April. Here I am reading an excerpt from my story that is in From The Belly Of The Cat. I also read a second story that night from the excellent anthology of feminist writing Body Boundaries.

Over the years I have attended many of such book launches and other literary events sometimes as an author sometimes as a reader. BooksActually is a great space for lit minded people to meet up.

But you can also tell that this store needs more space. Anything above ten folk in the store and moving around the narrow corridors left by the towering selection of books turns into this intricate weaving dance which we are more familiar with on our morning commutes. Sorry our butts have to touch as I squeeze by but I would really like to get to the other side ok thanks.

BooksActually needs a bigger and better space so these awesome literary events can comfortably hold more people. And you can help them do so.

2 Support local lit

BooksActually supports a great deal of Singapore writing via Math Paper Press which consistently puts out risk taking and thoughtful local writing.

If you want to buy stuff that specifically has my writing in it you can find it in these collections Ceriph volumes 3 and 6 Fish Eats Lion Ayam Curtain which I also edited and From The Belly Of The Cat.

But do not stop there because there are a lot of excellent books you can pick up from them. I recommend all the Ceriph volumes poetry by Tania De Rozario and Pooja Nansi the Babettes Feast chapbooks they are little nuggets of delight the Balik Kampung books.

There are also non MPP titles such as Body Boundaries mentioned above. I once bought a Croatian edition of a collection of Alvin Pangs poems because hrvatski man I still understand chunks of it and it is beautiful. They carry Epigram titles too such as Jolene Tans freshly debuted A Certain Exposure which I have been told is excellent. I have not read it because it was sold out at BooksActually but Kenny assures me he will be bringing in more copies.

Seriously there is a staggering amount of excellent Singapore writing available there. I would be here all day if I tried listing them all. Go there and see for yourself. And go nuts. They also have a webstore for international readers 30 off all Math Paper Press books now.

3 Support for other creatives in SG

Hi let me introduce you to my darling succulent plants. I love them very much and I keep them on my table next to me as I work and I have personally named each one of them Lars. Shut up Lars is a perfectly reasonable name for succulent plants. All of them.

I bought the Larses from a Green Banana popup store that was at BooksActually for one weekend. It is not the first time BA has done tieups with other creative enterprises in Singapore. If they had more space I am sure they would do more. As it is stuff is relegated to the tiny bench outdoors right now.

I might just have wanted an excuse to post a photo of the Larses.

4 They are just generally awesome ok.

Because they are. I just found out this week that my AWARE membership will get me a 20 discount at the store because they have got a partnership going on and they have been more than supportive of local LGBT movements. It is just a generally nice place to give your money as far as commercial establishments go.

So get going