Craft guide
ORBISBOOKSELLERS & STATIONERS IN SINGAPORE5 stores · curated ORBIS register
Bras Basah
Design bookshop in Singapore's Bras Basah Complex, started in 1985 by Basheer Ahamed as a traveling book salesman and given a permanent storefront in 1991; still family-run by his son Abdul Nasser.
Best for Architecture, illustration and graphic-design books
Outram
Founded in 1995 by writer and Cultural Medallion recipient Yeng Pway Ngon, this Chinese-language independent bookstore originally traded opposite the National Library before relocating in November 2014 to Bukit Pasoh Road; Yeng passed ownership in 2015 to Lim Jen Erh, Lim Yeong Shin and Lim Wooi Tee.
Best for Independent Chinese-language books and cultural space, since 1995.
Grassroots Book Room was founded in 1995 by Yeng Pway Ngon, a former journalist and Chinese-language poet and novelist later honored with Singapore's Cultural Medallion. The store began at the Qiaobei Centre, across from the National Library, as an outlet for Chinese-language literature, history, philosophy and art at a time when such independent stock was scarce in Singapore. In November 2014 it relocated to its current premises on Bukit Pasoh Road in the Chinatown/Outram area, close to Exit H of Outram Park MRT station. In 2015, Yeng passed the business on to three successors: Lim Jen Erh, a former journalist and dramatist; Lim Yeong Shin, who runs day-to-day operations; and Lim Wooi Tee, a medical doctor. Under their stewardship the shop has kept its core categories — Chinese and Western philosophy, Chinese modern literature, translated Japanese and Western literature, art and film — while adding newer sections such as picture books, food writing and lifestyle titles, maintaining its role as one of Singapore's few dedicated Chinese-language independent bookstores.
Tanjong Pagar
Independent bookshop opened in 2014 in a conservation shophouse at 20 Duxton Road near Tanjong Pagar, Singapore, curating literary fiction, crime, sci-fi/fantasy, travel writing and children's titles rather than bestseller-driven stock.
Best for General books in a two-storey conservation shophouse, since 2014
Littered with Books opened in 2014 in a two-storey conservation shophouse at 20 Duxton Road, close to Tanjong Pagar MRT station in Singapore's Duxton Hill / Chinatown conservation district. Shophouses of this kind - narrow street frontages opening into long, deep interiors - are a protected building type from Singapore's early-20th-century mixed-use architecture, and the shop's layout follows that footprint, with shelving running back through the building rather than spread across a wide frontage. Rather than trying to be a general-interest retailer, the shop curates a comparatively narrow list across literary fiction, crime and thrillers, science fiction and fantasy, travel writing, and award-winning children's books, aiming for depth within genres rather than breadth across every category a chain bookstore would carry. It has been repeatedly included in local roundups of Singapore's independent bookshops, alongside houses such as BooksActually, as one of the city's smaller literary-fiction specialists rather than a general bestseller retailer.
Kampong Glam
Wardah Books is an English-language Islamic bookshop founded in 2002 by Ibrahim Tahir in Singapore's Kampong Gelam. Its subjects also include regional history and literature, with children's reading among the wider selection. Book clubs and author sessions form part of its community work, continuing the area's bookselling tradition without making the modern business as old as its premises.
Best for English-language Islamic books and regional literature
Wardah Books is a Kampong Gelam bookshop specialising in English-language books on Islam, founded by Ibrahim Tahir in 2002. Its selection also reaches into literature and regional history, giving readers several ways into the subjects it covers. The shop occupies part of Bussorah Street's longer history of printing and bookselling in Singapore.
The National Heritage Board's account connects its premises with Chief Kadi Haji Ali, who previously lived and worked at the address. That earlier history belongs to the building and neighbourhood, rather than making Wardah itself a nineteenth-century business. The current bookshop's founding responded to a gap between the English Islamic texts readers wanted and what local shops offered.
Wardah supports reading through book clubs and author sessions, alongside the ordinary work of selecting and selling books. Begin with the subject or level of reading you want rather than assuming that every Islamic title serves the same purpose. Literature for children and a work of philosophy require different choices, even when both appear within the same shop's selection.
Joo Chiat
Illustrated-book and children's bookstore founded 2009 in Tiong Bahru; that flagship closed in 2024 after 11 years, with a Katong branch at 206 East Coast Road (opened 2023) now the main storefront.
Best for Illustrated books and children's titles since 2009
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