I still remember the season of Borders at Wheelock.
Borders was a physical bookstore at the corner of Orchard Road, part of an American franchise of bookstores. It was a place where you could get music, books, movies. I had spent years there, browsing through design books, and fiction, and listening to so much music.
But Borders closed down in 2011. I remember being pretty sad about it but not very sad, because I had already faced some breakups with my bookshops before already. MPH at Stamford Road was a place I had spent a lot of my childhood growing up, and during that time, Tower Records and Tower Books was still around. The bookstores of the past was really what led me to appreciate music, art, and stories the way I have in modern day.
In the past four to five years, Kinokuniya also closed some of their outlets in Singapore, and now we’re left with the main store at Takashimaya, and their outlet in Bugis as well. I remember literally crying when they had closed their Liang Court outlet, before Liang Court closed down within the next year. It was really a place where I spent years doing magazine collections, and just browsing and learning more about the world around me, because of the publications next to each other.
And now, Book Depository, an online store closes.
The move to start buying books online came out of a necessity. It was hard to find some books, or perhaps the different editions that I would find in store would be marked up significantly. I bought a lot of Book Depository books especially when I was at work, during my busy periods. I would come home to my own surprise when the book would arrive, usually three to four weeks later. With every package sent, they would usually send a bookmark as well, and soon I had a thick stack of Book Depository bookmarks in my room somewhere.
It’s quite something to go through, losing these places that gave me access to much more of the world around. It was my window to the world, beyond the searches that the Internet gives. I was quite happy to actually bump into other people at the book stores, and to hear other recommendation from the different staff, from the different people onsite.
Digital books have literally no place in my heart. There is no physical element, there is no paper. It is literally just the story. Every entertainer, anyone doing a presentation knows that the way that a story is received changes everything. From the way a music artist cuts an album on vinyl (which part of the album splits into the half), or the movie directors choosing to shoot with film instead of adding grain to 5K cinema quality, each of the creative decisions in the actual medium plays a huge part to the receiving of the content.
Sure, anyone can also play forward the idea that the story is the most important. But who would want to just listen to an objective telling of a story? A man loses something he really needs, struggles ensue, but he finds it, and it’s great. That’s the premise for most movies, and yet, each one is told differently. The choice of how it is told includes the way it’s told. Is it told loudly, is it told with dramatic pauses, and all the other storytelling cues?
Books tell that story in that way for me. The choice of the cover design, the way the fonts and the paper comes together, whether publisher, or designer, or the writer made a choice for it, it was a choice and it added to my own reading experience. Even the difference between hardcover and softcover add such a huge difference for me, and I am happy to collect multiple copies of the books that I enjoy. Re-reading would lead to such a different experience, especially if re-read with a new edition, with updated authors notes.
I will miss Book Depository. I thought of getting myself a Kindle, but I think my heart just aches for the shrinking market of the printed book. I hope one day, maybe I would publish my own, just to keep this hobby of mine going. Maybe that would be my own founder problem.