La Libreria

In case you don't know, there is one book shop, La Libreria,  selling and promoting artists' books and the book arts here, yes, in Singapore. The book shop, previously at Queen Street, was moved in Oct 2008 to the recent location at University Cultural Centre, NUS Musuem, Level 3, 50 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119279 (Tel:6516 8797). Opening hours are 12-19 Wed-Sat, 12-18 Sun, closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and public holidays.

La Libreria is like an underground movement of the art world, which stealthily but steadily bringing in edgy and thoughtprovoking works/exhibitions. Bookbinding workshops are held regularly as well.

It's a pity that one cannot view the beautiful artists' books online.

This A-book-that-is-shut-is-just-a-block poster, designed by Amandine Alessandra, is now available for sale on SuperMarketo for 20GBP.

Nice work, don't you think so ?

The Evolution of Anatomy Illustrations

For those of you who are interested to get a glimpse of the evolution of images in anatomy books between 1450 and 1800, do visit this site. You can also go ahead and visit the "Historical Anatomies On The Web" hosted by the National Library of Medicine for a full blow.  A word of warning though, some might find the illustrations disturbing, or not safe for work? You decide.

The slide show : Anatomy Lessons thru the Ages (total 10 images) at Scientific American is an alternative choice for the light-hearted.

Bookstores in Singapore

I've just updated the list today, mainly to include another 2 more Chinese bookstores to it.

Of course, the list is not all.  There are many more bookstores scattered around Singapore, mostly  located in our neighbourhood shopping centres.  For example, San Bookshop, which provides rental service of second-hand books in Romance and general fiction genre, with total 8 outlets right now - 3 outlets that I know of are at Kovan Shopping Centre, Singapore Plaza and Funan DigitalLife Mall. There is also a used book dealer at Beauty World Centre in Upper Bukit Timah Road, but I never visit since 2001 as it is a bit off the road for me.

In every one's heart simply lies a special bookshop that never fail to lure you there over and over again. Scary, hah ?

In Defense of Readers

Here is an interesting article by Mandy Brown in A List Apart, an online magazine for people who make websites.

My favourite passages :

"What each of these readers has in common is an ability to create solitude under circumstances that would seem to prohibit it. Reading is a necessarily solitary experience—like dying, everyone reads alone—but over the centuries readers have learned how to cultivate that solitude, how to grow it in the least hospitable environments."

"Think of your first encounter with a book. You look at the cover to get a sense of it, then perhaps flip to the back or the flaps to skim the publisher’s copy. Opening the book, you might glance at the title page, or quickly run your eyes over the table of contents. Maybe you peek into the back to check the page count, or casually assess the weight of the book in your hand. If it’s a hardcover, you might take the dust jacket off, lest it get in the way." (Haha .... exactly what I always do.)

"Once a reader has commanded the aura of solitude around them, they become nearly impenetrable. A reader who is thoroughly engrossed in reading may not hear you if you call her name. Call her name again, however, and she will look up, annoyed. The key is not to halt all activity around a reader, but to give her her space. " (Yes, leave me alone.)

Reading rots your brain?

"Can you imagine the Head of the Royal Institution suggesting that time spent by children reading and writing online in their bedroom was damaging their brains and cutting them off from social interaction?"

Susan Greenfield, neuroscientist and head of the Royal Institution, has warned that young people's brains may be fundamentally altered by Internet use. See here for yourself.

I would say that, yes,  it is a worrying trend that nowadays children/youngsters simply spend too much time in front of the computer screen gaming instead of "socializing" (eg. going out with friends) and playing sports.  But reading ?

Print Ad for Bookstores

Purely by chance, I have come across some print ads done recently for bookstores.....thought of sharing with all of you.


The General without his Labyrinth

The bearable lightness of being

Crime without punishment

These 3, out of 4, are for Rayuela Libreria, a bookstore in Málaga, Southern Spain.  The theme is "The act of reading allows you, thanks to your own imagination, to become whoever you want without paying for the consequences of your actions, without the remorse, that is why the copy is: live without consequences."

The following 3 are for Blossom Book House in Bangalore, India.

For age old favourites

Quite similar to the above, this one is for Book World, a second-hand bookstore in Satwa and Karama, Dubai.

Gracefully Aged Campaign

Apparently the bookstore was started by someone out of love for books, thus the very reasonably priced old books. Hmm .....