Retro-bookish treats for every reader

Word to the wise: Sign up for one of the store's popular workshops, where you'll learn everything from silkscreen printing to crafting your personal life into a piece of art.

Noteworthy for: Books Actually stocks the city's largest collection of Singaporean literary publications.

Whimsical bookworms will adore this quirky, independent bookstore in the increasingly-cool Tiong Bahru Estate. Specialising in fiction and literature from poetry to essays, literary journals to out-of-print and antique editions, there's a great selection of random tomes here.

The store's gorgeous own-brand stationary line, Birds & Co, also does its bit to inspire a new generation of young writers with hand-bound notebooks and pencils imprinted with the names of famous authors.