So you want to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic, but you want new books to keep you company.
Fret not – there are myriad ways of stocking up on fresh reads without leaving your house.
When the outbreak hit Singapore, local independent bookshop BooksActually saw in-store sales drop by 30 to 40 per cent.
Its online sales, however, went up by 10 per cent.
Last Wednesday, owner Kenny Leck started offering free worldwide delivery for purchases of at least three books.
It is a gamble: shipping costs can be punitive, though Mr Leck is in talks with a new logistics partner.
The offer runs until April 10.
"We are calculating to see if it'll result in a loss," says Mr Leck, 41, who just dispatched three of Ovidia Yu's Crown Colony mysteries to New Zealand.
"If it does not, we will extend it. We thought it'd be something nice to do for our international supporters."
For the housebound reader, get your books from these places.
1.PHYSICAL BOOKS[hhmc]
Few things can replace the comfort of holding a physical book in your hands.
There are the usual e-commerce options such as Amazon and Book Depository, though delivery times may be longer than usual due to an increased demand.
Instead, consider supporting your local bookstore.
Times Bookstores' titles are available on platform GoGuru (goguru.com.sg), which offers free local delivery within three to five working days.
Its clearance section has books going for up to 45 per cent off.
Books Kinokuniya also has its own online store (singapore.kinokuniya.com) with free local delivery for purchases of more than $35.
Independent bookshops and publishers are also in on the act, from Mr Leck's BooksActually (booksactuallyshop.com) to publisher Epigram Books (shop.epi grambooks.sg), which is offering a 19 per cent "Covid-19" discount at its online store and free local delivery throughout next month.
LocalBooks.sg, an online store that specialises in Singaporean books, also offers free local delivery within seven to 10 days.
2. E-BOOKS[hhmc]
Besides the e-books one can buy on the Amazon Kindle e-reader, there is also a growing selection of home-grown titles available from publishers such as Ethos Books (ethosbooks.com.sg) and Straits Times Press (stbooks.sg).
For the academically minded, Cambridge University Press has made more than 700 of its textbooks free for download to students through university libraries.
There are also free digital libraries such as Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org), which has more than 60,000 books – mostly older works for which the United States copyright has expired – and Scribd (scribd.com), which lets you read for free for 30 days.
The National Library Board has more than 725,000 e-books and audiobooks in its collection, which readers can borrow on the Libby app.
3. AUDIOBOOKS[hhmc]
Audiobook platform Storytel Singapore (storytel.com/HomeSweet Home) is giving everyone 30 days' free access to its entire collection of more than 180,000 titles, for which a user would normally have to pay $9.90 a month.
These include bestsellers and classics, as well as local titles such as Teo You Yenn's essay collection This Is What Inequality Looks Like, narrated by presenter Anita Kapoor.
To help parents keep their kids entertained if they cannot go to school, audiobook giant Audible (stories.audibRead More – Source
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