Booktique Where Writers Shop

02/07/2026

As we have been using the free plan, we are unable to download our content to migrate to another website provider. To create all our catalogues in their entirety is an insurmountable task for a one-man operation. I have started rebuilding our website. To streamline the process, I have to downsize our curation across the eight years’ catalogues.

Right now, our catalogues are still active online until 27th September. You can still pre order the titles from us. If you haven’t browsed our past catalogues, take this moment to discover titles that may not be included in our new catalogues.

https://booktique.weebly.com/mail-order.html

Anthony

22/06/2026

Singapore: A Cinematic Portrait traces how the island has been seen, imagined, and reinvented on screen—from early colonial newsreels to contemporary cinema.

Written by Raphaël Millet, the book spans 125 years of film history, shaped by colonialism, decolonisation, and independence, and viewed through local and foreign lenses. It brings multi-language Asian cinemas into a shared chronology, foregrounding films while addressing archival gaps through rare sources.

Framed by the ideas of Nanyang and Nusantara, it reveals a plural, transnational cinema. Since the 1990s, currents of nostalgia and melancholy have reflected the tensions of rapid change, memory, and erasure—capturing a city continually lived, lost, and reimagined through film.

Richly illustrated with historical film materials-film posters, handbills and photographs, this volume is both a reference work and a visual archive. It offers a layered perspective on Singapore cinema and Singapore’s place within global film history, while foregrounding the role of images in shaping how the city has been seen, remembered, and understood.

Contents:

1 Early Cinema
2 The Inter-War Years
3 Cinema in Times of War
4 The Post-war Cinematic Awakening
5 The Grand Studio Era: Filming Nusantara
6 The Grand Studio Era: Filming Nanyang
7 The Grand Studio Era: Singapore's Cinematic Malayan Touch
8 1960 Singapore Through the Indian Lens
9 Cold War Singapore Through the Western Lens
10 A Cinematic Transition Looking for Direction
11 Melancholia Singapura
12 Nostalgia Singapura
13 Filming the Singapore Dream
14 Filming the Singapore Story

About the author

Raphaël Millet is a film scholar, writer, director and producer based between France and Singapore since 2002. Trained in political science and film studies in Paris, he has taught cinema, worked with France Télévisions and the French National Centre of Cinema (CNC), and written widely on European, Middle Eastern and Asian cinemas.

A specialist on Singapore cinema, he is the author of Le Cinéma de Singapour (2003) and Singapore Cinema (2006), and a contributor to Positif, Trafic, Les Cahiers du cinéma and BiblioAsia. In 2005, he co-created Screen Singapore, the first major retrospective of the nation’s cinema, and has advised institutions including the Centre Pompidou.

As a documentary filmmaker, his work explores cinema history and culture. His Singapore-related films—Gaston Méliès and His Wandering Star Film Company, Chaplin in Bali and The Capitol of Singapore—are held in the Asian Film Archive.

🎬 Image source: Asian Film Archive

530 pages / 1.65kg / H: 26cm x W: 22cm, thickness: 3.8cm / $82) DM us to get a copy!

12/06/2026

At 48, I watched my first Boys’ Love (BL) series and was hooked. What I didn’t know then was that my life would be transformed at age 50 by the world of BL.

Love is love. And the spirit of BL celebrates exactly that. In this Pride month, I will be sharing how BL has inspired me to live imaginatively at middle age.

Join me in a tell-all session where I will entertain you with my BL fangaying, go deep on the impact of BL in my ageing years, and disclose my true-life BL story.

Date & Time:
13 June, Saturday from 4pm to 5pm

Venue: City Book Room

Address: 387 Joo Chiat Road, #03-02,
The Modules S427623

A two-day Pride Book Fair will happen at City Book Room on 13 & 14 June from 11am to 6pm.

RSVP for Sharing Session

https://booktique.weebly.com/BL-RSVP.html

11/06/2026

The final published work from a creative genius, it is a rare and lasting performance in words that beautifully accompanies Sakamoto's eternal, moving performances in music.

A bestseller in Japan, a remarkable reflection on making art, living life, and accepting death, from the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, the world-renowned musical genius and godfather of electronic music.

One of Japan's most influential artists and composers, Ryuichi Sakamoto was a man of multitudes. Perhaps best known as the Oscar-winning composer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and a founder of the groundbreaking electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto was a pop icon, an avant-garde visionary, a techno innovator, and a proud environmentalist. While his unique brilliance transcended mediums as well as borders, Sakamoto himself was curious about how he came to be the complex phenomenon known as "Ryuichi Sakamoto”—a journey to answer the question, "Why do I lead this life?"

Filled with candid photos, Music Sets You Free is the incredible chronicle of a life excitingly lived: an intimate, contemplative, and fascinating recounting of his life story as a musical journey, from his first childhood encounter with a piano to his rise as a global pop star and award-winning composer. Sakamoto's boundless curiosity led to myriad experiences: producing catchy yet experimental hits with YMO, starring with David Bowie in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, collaborating with pop geniuses such as David Byrne, Iggy Pop, and Brian Wilson, appearing in a Madonna music video, and even modeling for the Gap.

Throughout his career, Sakamoto was also a dedicated social activist, avidly protesting nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, and restoring a tsunami-damaged piano for his 2017 album async. While the pain of surgeries and treatments left him both emotionally and physically vulnerable in his later life, Sakamoto pushed through the pain to record his final artistic evolution into more avant-garde work after a transformative trip to Greenland during which he witnessed the effects of global warming first-hand.

Music Sets You Free is both a self-reflective testament and thought-provoking meditation on life, mortality, and the enduring power of art. It is the memoir of a visionary whose life and work embodied the aphorism Ars Longa, Vita Brevis (“Art is long, life is short”).​

Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett (Hardcover / 496 pages / $44).

More titles in our 2026 Non Fiction catalogue.

https://booktique.weebly.com/2026cataloguenonfiction.html

07/06/2026

R.I.P Marjane Satrapi

The French-Iranian author and illustrator was known for her graphic novel series and Oscar-nominated film.

05/06/2026

“The internet is already overwhelmed by bots and slop. It is becoming harder and harder to know where things came from and whether they are true. This has led to a growing sense that nothing can be trusted, requiring an almost paranoid vigilance from everyone about everything or, worse, a descent into nihilism. The effect isn’t just that people believe untrue things, it is that they no longer believe true things. That toxic combination is already leading more people to disengage altogether.

The tech companies wave their hands at these trends and say “not our fault” and, perhaps more tellingly, “not our problem.”

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/new-york-times-publisher-g-sulzberger-why-and-how-news-publishers-should-fight-ai-platforms?

The New York Times publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, offered the opening remarks at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille. Here we republished the full text of his speech, whose title was 'AI, journalism and the uncertain future of the public square', and which was first published here.

17/05/2026

Yesterday, a reading club at City Book Room was discussing the book 《失语》. Their discussion was so lively that I was enticed to read it. For our English readers, here’s the translated version from our 2024 catalogue.

Wai and Ling are secondary school Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong, both crumbling under the pressure of a forced transition from using Cantonese to Mandarin as a medium of Chinese-language instruction. Apolitical and focused only on surviving their professional environment, Wai and Ling approach the challenge differently: Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning, only to fail the qualification exam, lose her job, become mentally ill, and kill herself by inserting a drill into her head.

Ling is polished and cunning, she knows how to please her superiors and believes she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge through her social savviness. Ling sees herself haunted and mirrored by Wai's tragedy: things around her slowly spiral out of control and her colleagues begin to shun her too. What will she do to survive in a ruthless environment where the rules of survival are constantly being re-written?

Tongueless is a taut, compelling novel of betrayal, power imbalance and rapid social change.

(304 pages / $30)
https://booktique.weebly.com/2024catalogue-fiction.html

For Chinese readers, you can pre order a copy ($25) from 城市書房 City Book Room web-store.

https://citybookroom.com/en/products/shi_yu

To attend the next reading club, follow
世界動盪 我們讀書

https://www.instagram.com/reading_through_turbulenttimes?igsh=MXhiNWQ3eTZqbGt3ZA==

13/05/2026

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYKKhnXl67x/?igsh=MW5vNjh6YWgxbzNibw==

12/05/2026

Vengeful spirits, shape-shifting foxes, haunted objects, ghostly monks, reanimated bodies, and the King of Hell . . . This collection of eerie ghost stories paints a vivid picture of Kyoto’s ancient supernatural landscape and its influence on anime, manga, and Japanese culture to this day.

This entertaining retelling of Kyoto’s frightful folklore connects the macabre legends of the past to the sensational supernatural stories in Japanese pop culture today. Éric Faure, a longtime resident of Kyoto, tells these stories in a pithy, engaging way. He offers historical and cultural anecdotes, and personal insights, including how these narratives have permeated contemporary Japanese media culture. From the historical practice of the “Hundred Stories” during the Obon festival, to the lingering impact of vengeful spirits on the city’s landmarks, these tales reveal the complex interplay between the realms of the living and the dead, exploring themes of redemption, compassion, and the consequences of human actions. Faure invites you to contemplate their own beliefs about the unseen forces that shape our existence.

Whether you’re a folklore enthusiast, Japan aficionado, a fan of anime and manga, or a curious traveler, this book serves as both an entertaining anthology and an alternative guidebook to Kyoto’s hidden spiritual realm. Ghostly Kyoto is an entertaining read and offers an understanding of the enduring power of the supernatural in Japanese society and its profound impact on the Japanese experience.

(320 pages / $41) More new titles in our 2026 Non Fiction catalogues

https://booktique.weebly.com/2026cataloguenonfiction.html