Booktique Where Writers Shop

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Booktique Where Writers Shop

Have an eclectic taste in books? Looking for books on writing? Launching your self-published books? The 6-months' pop up ended in May 2015.

Booktique Where Writers Shop is an independent bookshop founded in 2013 by a freelance writer for aspiring writers. After a year of book fairs, it opened its first pop-up bookshop at The Cathay and MP Baey Yam Keng attended its inaugural celebration. The 3-months' pop up ended in August 2014 and two months later, Booktique opened its next pop-up bookshop at CityLink Mall. Even with a physical sto

re, Booktique continued to do book fairs and participated in arts events like Verve, World Lit and Words Go Round. It also hosted book launches and art-related workshops and organized festive bazaars in the backroom of the bookshop. Since having its first store, the rustic interior and small collection of books have customers calling it a "cute, little bookshop" and "quaint and cosy, minimalistic greenhouse". From the start, the founder has been reaching out to self-published authors. The word spread and Booktique now supports more than 30 such authors. George Whitman, founder of Shakespeare and Company in Paris said: “Give what you can, take what you need.” This philosophy influences the way Booktique is run. In mid July 2015, Booktique returned to CityLink Mall as a permanent shop. Unfortunately, it closed down in July 2017 after the lease expired. Since then, it has been operating online via book fairs and catalogue orders.

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

10/05/2026

An apple got Adam and Eve thrown out of paradise. In Linda Joan Smith’s glowing debut novel, a peach shows a 13-year-old girl the way in. —The New York Times Book Review

The night that workhouse orphan Scilla Brown dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall, she wants only to steal a peach—the best thing she’s ever tasted in her hard, hungry life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and mistaken for a boy, she grabs on to something more: a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. If she can just keep up her deception, she’ll have a soft bed and food beyond her wildest dreams . . . maybe even peaches.

She soon falls in with Phin, a garden apprentice who sneaks her into the steamy, fruit-filled greenhouses, calls her “Brownie,” and makes her skin prickle. At the same time, the gruff head gardener himself is teaching lowly Scilla to make things grow, and she’s cultivating hope with every seed she plants. But as the seasons unfurl, her loyalties become divided, and her secret grows harder to keep. How far will she go to have a home at last?

Beautifully crafted with classic middle-grade themes of fate and ambition, identity and personal responsibility, this stunning debut features brisk pacing, crackling dialogue, and deep insight into what makes a garden thrive—and a heart and mind flourish.

(384 pages / Age 8 - 12 / $18) More new titles in our 2026 Children’s Catalogue

https://booktique.weebly.com/2026catalogue-children.html

05/05/2026

This morning, we are back at Yuying Secondary School for another fun book fair!

Students tag the books they like to read, and the school buy them for the library. This is a great way to invest the library fund to build a collection of titles that are handpicked by the students!

Invite us to bring the fun to your school book fair!

https://booktique.weebly.com/host-our-book-fair.html

01/05/2026

Many of us dream of owning a bookshop but for Katie Clapham it happened by accident, when she moved back to the seaside town she grew up in and went into business with her mum.

Once a week, Katie sits behind the counter and chronicles the day's comings and goings - mostly people who were actually hoping to catch her mother. The triumphs here are small but hard-won: a tea crisis averted, a book title correctly identified from a cryptic clutch of clues. Not to mention the emotional rollercoaster of being named the 7th Best Bookshop in the Country by The Times in a week where daily takings came to around £16.98.

Customers appear for a browse and a chat, in search of a recommendation or the perfect gift. Others enter the shop for more unexpected reasons - to borrow a screwdriver, locate a priest or simply to ask if there's 'a nice place for an omelette around here'. Each day brings its own joys and frustrations, though not always in equal measure

Funny, surprising and affectionate, here is a bookseller’s year in all its weirdness and wonder – a life-affirming celebration of bad weather, good books and the irreplaceable role of a local bookshop.

(304 pages / $35) More new titles in our 2026 Non Fiction Catalogue

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

24/04/2026

Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day. This year, I would like to share a story with you.

I used to run a bookstore at City Link Mall from 2015 to 2017. We did well and 6 months later, I converted it into a permanent store. I needed part timers; out of the few who applied for the position, one person would later became instrumental in my bookselling journey. I didn’t hire her as her retail background was in a Chinese bookstore.

Some time later in 2016, I was utterly surprised to read in the newspaper that she opened a bookstore at North Bridge Centre not far from mine. One day, I decided to pay her a visit during my lunch break. The bookstore was none other than City Book Room. That young woman whom I didn’t hire was Tan Waln Ching. Her spirit had earned my admiration. I went to visit her several times to support her.

In the later part of that year, our bookstore was hit by the retail meltdown that saw quiet malls in Orchard Road. I shared about our struggle on Facebook. One day, Waln Ching came with her husband and supported us generously.

Our bookstore eventually closed down in 2017. I lost all my savings and incurred debt. Waln Ching offered me her store space to have our own book fairs. Her kind gestures marked the beginning of a rare friendship.

In recent years, I feel that she is like a younger sister (I’m ten years old than her) taking care of her “older brother”. When I broke up with my boyfriend of 12 years in 2022, she was there for me through and through.

This Independent Bookstore Day, I’m sharing this story to celebrate the friendship between two bookstores and two booksellers. I am forever grateful that the person I didn’t hire 10 years ago now hires me.

城市書房 City Book Room

20/04/2026

These brilliant young people have embraced writing as a form of liberation, both for the self and to resist the global invisibilisation of Gaza.' FRANCESCA ALBANESE, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories

A teenage girl stares at her roof, hoping it won’t collapse over her head. A young student searches the Internet for photos of libraries around the world, hoping he’ll be able to visit them one day. Another walks around the city, taking notes of all the buildings she dreams of repairing.

These are the stories of young people from Gaza, born under Israeli occupation and blockade. They are people who have endured unspeakable struggles and losses, who keep fighting to be recognised not as numbers, but as human beings with hopes, dreams and lives worth living.

We Are Not Numbers was founded in 2014 to give voice to the youth of Gaza. In this collection, vital, urgent and full of heart, spanning over ten years to the present moment, we gain an unparalleled insight into the past, as well as the current and next generation of Palestinian leaders, artists, scientists and scholars and imagine where we might go from here.

(368 pages / $24) Stock available. More titles in our 2026 Non Fiction Catalogue

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

19/04/2026

Do you want to change the world but wonder if there’s any point trying?

Are you unsure what you can offer, or don’t feel that you fit the activist mould?

Do you think activists can be self-righteous, even oblivious to the very people they’re trying to help?

How Not To Save the World is a book about doing good, for anyone who has looked at politics or public discourse and thought, ‘we need better than this.’ The fervour that drives us to change the world can create blind spots, where we don’t see our own behaviour, or disregard it because the cause is urgent.

Realistic, candid and hopeful, How Not To Save the World is a sympathetic exploration of alternatives to righteousness, purity traps and other unhelpful habits. It shows that there are ways to work together for what matters, without alienating the people we need to convince.

(353 pages / $26) DM us to pre order a copy! More titles in our 2026 Non Fiction catalogue

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

14/04/2026

The debut short story collection from Korean Sci-Fi superstar Kim Choyeop - more than 400,000 copies sold in Korea

Each of these bitesize speculative masterpieces represents a journey into the unknown, guided by a writer blessed with a boundless imagination.

From alternative futures to distant alien planets, in the company of scientists, space explorers and ordinary citizens in extraordinary situations, she revels in making the impossible seem not only possible but somehow inevitable.

Traversing the bounds of imagination with an ethereal incisiveness, her stories dismantle the borders between normal and abnormal, material and abstract, earthly and otherworldly. With unforgettable inventiveness and pathos, If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light heralds the arrival of an essential voice in contemporary fiction.

Translated from the Korean by Anton Hur

(192 pages / $33) Pre order now and receive it in early May!

More titles in our 2026 Fiction catalogue

https://booktique.weebly.com/2026catalogue-fiction.html

13/04/2026

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei examines censorship and self-censorship, through the lens of his compelling personal history, offering readers profound insights into an important topic of current and perpetual relevance.

Ai Weiwei is one of contemporary art's greatest practitioners. He has been a voice for artistic and personal freedom of expression for decades within his native China and around the world.

This publication offers a compelling exploration of censorship and self-censorship. Drawing on his personal experiences and advocacy for human rights, Ai Weiwei provides a uniquely informed perspective. He examines how censorship persists in authoritarian regimes as well as subtly within democratic frameworks, corporate power, the arts, and social media, arguing that its concealed and pervasive nature poses a significant threat to genuine expression. This thought-provoking work by a singular voice invites readers to critically reconsider power, ideology, and the boundaries of free speech.

(Hardcover / 88 pages / $26) More titles in our 2025 non fiction catalogue.
https://booktique.weebly.com/2026cataloguenonfiction.html

Catch Ai Weiwei’s solo exhibition at Tang Contemporary Art from March 21 to May 2.

https://www.tangcontemporary.com/2026-aiweiwei-en

03/04/2026

Drawing on the evocative Japanese term tsundoku - first coined in the Meiji era to describe the growing stacks of unread books that accumulate around devoted readers - this insightful and warmly humorous book reframes what some might see as clutter or guilt as a deeply meaningful way of living.

From the tactile pleasure of flipping through pages to the quiet ritual of rearranging overflowing shelves, Tsundoku explores the psychology, culture, and poetry behind the irresistible urge to collect and cherish books. It offers meditations on the joy of choosing and buying books, the rebellion against reading lists, creative ways to organise your shelves, foolproof excuses for sneaking in yet another new title, techniques for remembering what you've read, and the guilty - but glorious - pleasure of re-reading.

Above all, this philosophy reminds us that we do not necessarily have to have read all the books we own to love them unconditionally. Feelings of guilt, be gone! Unread books can be even more fascinating because they take us on wonderful journeys, and speak to us regardless, whether we open them or keep them closed. We know that books are a cure for the soul: just touching one, smelling one, or leafing through one makes us feel better immediately.

(Hardcover / 208 pages / $36) More titles in our 2026 Non-Fiction catalogue

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

Taiki Raito Pym is not a single person, but the pseudonym of a collective—a group of passionate readers who have fallen victim to tsundoku. Books began to occupy their homes ever since they were children and, by the time they realized it, books had already taken over their living spaces. And of course, they all have at least one cat. But that is another story!

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