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Singapore Bring Back the Penguincubator with Book Vending Machines

By June 8, 2016Bookshops

Residents of Singapore know there aren’t enough bookshops to keep people reading, and so does Kenny Leck, owner of BooksActually, an independent bookstore in Singapore. So much so in fact that the company is placing book vending machines at various points around the country.

The machines cost around £5,000 each, an amount that has been partly dunded by a government grant and they are visually pleasing, with visible book covers and wrap around art from local artists.

Currently there are three book vending machines, one installed at the National Museum of Singapore, one at the Singapore Visitors Centre, and one in the Goodman Arts Centre, headquarters for the National Arts Council. The machines are visual and eye catching, and it’s hoped this will be part of the project’s success.

Eventually Kenny Leck says he hopes to see them in railway stations and more prominent locations across Singapore to fuel the current trend for reading. Each vending machine holds around 150 books, across 20 different titles so there’s plenty of variation, and more or less offers customers a ‘bookshop on every corner’ if the scheme is successful.

Mr Leck says he took the idea from the Penguincubator, a vending machine that issues the cheap Penguin paperbacks back in 1937. He was inspired by the idea and the design, and is now attempting to make it work in Singapore.

What do you think of this idea? Would you like to see book vending machines on every corner? It sounds like a bibliophile’s dream, and the fact that the machines are run by an independent bookshop just makes it even more brilliant! I wish the Penguincubator was still available everywhere.



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