This cosy New Bridge Road bookstore lets you read all day – no purchase needed

Bookstores in Singapore are rare, but a handful of quiet heroes are still keeping the pages turning. One of them is the independent Chinese bookstore tucked along New Bridge Road: To Be Continued (TBC) Bookstore, where simply spending time with books is the whole point. 

Behind it all is founder Odie Wu, who’s less interested in maximising retail sales and more focused on creating a space where people can spend time with books, whether or not they buy anything. That spirit runs through TBC Bookstore – since opening in 2024, it’s operated as a reading room where you can come in, sit down, read the books in-store, and stay as long as you like with no pressure to purchase anything at all. Camping chairs and plush couches add to the comfortable and inviting atmosphere.  

The selection is almost entirely in Chinese, spanning carefully curated fiction, essays, translated works, and cultural writing you won’t usually find in larger chain bookstores. 

TBC also occasionally hosts arthouse film screenings in collaboration with the historic Ee Hoe Hean Club. It’s an unlikely pairing on paper – a young indie bookstore working with a century-old private members’ club in Bukit Pasoh – but it speaks to the same impulse on both sides: keeping slower, more intentional forms of culture alive in a city that often moves fast past them.

Follow them on Instagram here for film screening announcements and store updates.

To Be Continued Bookstore is located at 233A New Bridge Rd, Singapore 059441, and is open 11am to 7pm daily except Thursdays.

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