The hubbub around the recent shuttering of a couple of Times bookshops here has somewhat coalesced in the articles “Books will endure, for readers will ensure it” (March 17) and “The role of storytelling: Are people too busy for stories today?” (March 18).

There has been much hand-wringing over the failure of bookshops to thrive in Singapore, with the usual reasons being proffered: high overheads – especially stratospheric rentals – and lax reading habits. Even our excellent libraries have been touted as a reason.

Solutions proposed include a subsidy or grant for bookshops, which seems to be the usual top-down approach to a whole gamut of issues.

I do not claim to offer any solution to this conundrum – just an amazing story, and it’s not even mine.

The acclaimed Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov wrote recently that up to a dozen new bookshops have opened in Kyiv in the past year, and the capital will soon boast the largest bookshop in Ukraine.

He has visited a bookshop in his war-torn country poignantly called Heroi (Ukrainian for Heroes) which is a homage to Ukrainian journalist and poet Mykola Rachok, who had always dreamt of opening a bookshop.

When he perished as a volunteer in battle in the Donbas in July 2022, his family, with no experience in the book business, cobbled together money received as compensation and from the sale of their apartment to buy premises to open the bookshop in his memory in January 2024. 

Books sold there are stamped with the shop logo, which is a silhouette of Rachok in military gear sitting on a pile of books holding a volume in his hands.

Singapore’s dearth of bookshops may seem an irredeemably sad state of affairs, but let us draw inspiration from this story of Ukraine as we have conversations about rescuing our bookshops.

Colin Lim