Finding imported books in Indonesia is quite easy; go to the chain store Periplus. Or, if you’re in Jakarta, there is Kinokuniya. Periplus was made for expats looking for magazines and newspapers from home, as well as travel maps and airport novels, and therefore was in hotels and airports in the 20th century. By the 21st century, its main consumers switched to middle-class Indonesians looking for the latest NYT bestsellers and subscribing to Elle USA, UK, or Australia, along with Time and Four Four Two.
A Singaporean chain, Times (RIP), entered Indonesia in the early 2010s and was quickly rebranded by its local partner as Books & Beyond, as the 2010s bookstores also relied on Lego, Harry Potter & Marvel-stamped gifts, girlboss office kits, and magazine subscriptions. In that decade, I relied on The Economist's books of the year to decide what to buy and ordered them online through Periplus.
Then, the 2020s. I can no longer trust The Economist (plus the subscription wasn’t worth it), Books & Beyond couldn’t last, and I’m quite sure that the superhero crash also contributed to the chain bookstore's demise. More importantly, the publishing landscape changed dramatically. Online, you have progressives hyped out about diversity and inclusion. Offline, you see magazines languish on the rack and books go unsold.
And yes, there’s a digital revolution where people no longer need to collect magazines. While most people I know still buy prints, by the 2020s, all my books will be on Google Play Books, if only for the discounted price, instant delivery, and endless storage (I know, the books belong to Google, not me).
On Monday the fifth, I went to Periplus, with the primary goal of buying Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise and the secondary goal of buying a print copy of Kat Rosenfield’s You Must Remember This. Both titles are available in Periplus’ online store, and I have a Google Play Books copy of YMR. Here, I attempt to outline my observations in points.
1. A new life for fiction?
My Periplus branch had reordered its layout and was now focusing on fiction, and there were a lot of fiction books. There were staff recommendations, and soon I understood the reason for the resurgence: BookTok.
Being a straight Millennial man, naturally, I’m out of depth about BookTok, but I imagine it’s a good avenue for writers and publicists. In any case, be it in the West or Asia, modern fiction is women-led. From my time at the bookstore, I remembered multiple titles by two authors. Emily Henry and Jesse Q. Sutanto. I checked if Henry’s been on my Twitter timeline (she’s not), while Sutanto is a Chinese Indonesian writer who lives in Jakarta and has her novels optioned for screen adaptation by Netflix and Warner Bros. R.F. Kuang was another author with multiple titles.
I combed the bookstore twice and dove into the bargain bins inside and outside the store and didn’t find my quarry. To my annoyance, the books weren’t arranged alphabetically by the author’s surname, but I understood why. There were too many books of different sizes, I’m sure the staff were more than happy they could get everything stacked without anything collapsing.
And that’s precisely the problem. There were other patrons beside me on Monday afternoon. Single men and women. Mothers with children. Seniors. I noticed some had carried books with them, and I came at the right time, as 30% applied for purchases of three books and 50% for five. Five shoppers buying five would mean 25 books off the shelves, and I would have done it had I found the books I had in mind. But there were more books than there were buyers, as testified by well-stocked bargain bins inside and outside the store.
I understand that the oversupply of books is a global problem. Publishers print more books in the name of inclusion, growth, and new markets. On the other hand, online enthusiasm and critics’ recommendations don’t necessarily translate to sales. Book purchases naturally aren’t as easy an expense the way it was a decade ago, and fans would focus on their favorite writers, due to budget and the fandom nature of social media in the 2020s.
There have been questions on whether male literary fiction still exists in the 21st century, and there are mixed answers. Yes, you just don’t look hard enough. No, between publishers aren’t interested in straight men writing straight male topics anymore, and straight men no longer read new fiction in the first place (we have a chicken or egg problem here). (Straight) Male fiction books I could find on that afternoon were Haruki Murakami, some Tom Clancy derivatives, and some David Baldacci derivatives. A far call from the bro literature of the Obama era, for better or worse.
2. Internet Killed the Newsagent Star
Magazines had been on the ropes since the 2010s, as the middle class lounged and sat and waited with their Wi-Fi phones. Magazine subscription was the core business of imported bookstores across Asia, until it became less interesting now. Ironically, Conde Nast and other companies responded to expanded markets and staff in the 2010s by pushing more diversity, and I don’t think they helped to keep the subscribers’ number steady.
By the mid-2010s, magazines still covered the inner racks of Periplus and other imported bookstores. Female magazines for women (Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, Glamour), and news magazines and hobbies for men, from video games to automotive. And plenty of stuff for children too, from Disney to National Geographic.
Nothing was sold now, and I knew why. The magazine was no longer fun. It was no longer glamorous. It was no longer worthy. In any case, the Internet, from the World Wide Web to apps, rendered the magazine obsolete. But what made it special, from the classy ads to the familiarity of sections to the gripping writing, had been rendered boring and sterile. Because woke? Maybe. Asian middle class justified the very expensive subscription price with the value they got, that taste of American and British sophistication in their hands. That sophistication is no longer there.
In any case, I found a single copy of Four Four Two Summer 2023, with the cover image of the Three Lionesses, the England women’s soccer team. It’s not a bad collector's edition, as they have reached the World Cup final, and I like the team. But the price and my overall mood that afternoon didn’t justify a purchase.
3. No Wokeness in Indonesia
I had anticipated more books on Palestine on display, judging from what I heard in Western bookstores and from Indonesian X. But no. Nothing much to offer besides Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine and Chomsky & Pappe’s On Palestine. Perhaps more books were on offer last year. Books on LGBTQ matters were limited, although some might have been there. The closest things to woke children’s books were on hijab pride, Disney princess feminism, and ethnic grandma’s tales.
A cultural shock I experienced in Singapore was how conservatism and liberalism lived side by side in a bookstore. Carlson next to Krugman, Klein next to Coulter. There was no place for conservative books in Australian chain bookstores in the 2000s, and for Asian bookstores, it was illogical. Why deny half of the market? A bookstore’s business is to sell books to consumers, not more, no less.
I was quite sure that the staff had some political stances too, and none of them were into Trump or Israel. The bookstore sold Hillbilly Elegy when it was a The Economist’s Book of the Year, but they would not be in rush to sell any MAGA book, simply because the partnering publishers don’t have them.
In short, in the absence of a blockbuster booth (maybe they tried, and no consumer cared), the bookstore is as apolitical as it could get, perhaps like many affluent Indonesians are.
4. Online is where it's at
This is a grim point. If I want a print edition of both books, I can order them, and more books written by my X mutuals, on Periplus’ online store. Had I asked a store staff member about the titles, they would do the cursory search before pointing me at the e-store kiosk and offered me a pick & pay service at the store (i.e., the books would be delivered to the store as a priority delivery, they would contact me, and I could pay in store).
Even the largest book and stationery chain in Indonesia, Gramedia, has Rosenfield’s You Must Remember This and No One Will Miss Her in a digital version. I knew when entering the store that I could have set two more realistic objectives: To see what the bookstore situation is like in May 2025, and to buy other books in stock.
At least I fulfilled the first objective. Ironically, I saw a copy of Taylor Lorenz’s Extremely Online, which is the opposite of what I wanted, as it seems that she hates my mutuals and vice versa. At the end of the day, it’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just the way it is with the retail market, and I just hoped someone else had the money and interest to buy books they liked this week.
It wasn’t a good day for me and the bookstore. It was just a good day for Substack as I knew what to write, and for Baskin-Robbins, since I decided to have it, probably for the first time in my life, if not in years. Eating the ice cream while reading No One Will Miss Her on my phone.