Bookstores in peril

Print culture was buffeted by cruel economic winds in 2024.

- Clement Yong Correspondent

In successive months, Times Bookstores exited after nearly five decades of operations; SingLit bastion Epigram Books posted notice that it will shut its bricks-and-mortar store Epigram Coffee Bookshop; and the landmark Thambi Magazine Store in Holland Village shuttered.

The news was met with public groans that served only to underscore the relentlessness of the tragic trend.

It is a familiar story by now, with the culprits - high rents, poor readership and readers' shift from physical books - painfully clear.

Yet, an extra hint of desperation could be detected when the book community pointed an accusatory finger at an unexpected contributor to the demise of bookshops.

Could the ubiquitous and well-stocked National Library be eating into booksellers' profits? Would readers otherwise buy books if hard copies and e-books were not so readily available?

This thesis has generated a new angle and interest in longer-term discussions about subsidies for bookstores and goods and services tax exemptions on book sales, reigniting a sense of urgency that the fate of these spaces should not be left to the blind forces of the market.

Thambi Magazine Store's closure in May was an emotional affair witnessed by a crowd of about 20, prompting tears from owner Periathambi Senthil Murugan.