I'm nervous about my long flight 😐

Halp. I've never been on a flight longer than 10 hours, and even that left me with some lower back pain. I'm far too early in life to complain about it without a few eye rolls from family.

And this time, I'll be on a 17-hour flight. There is a transit, but the longer stretch is still 12 hours. What's the longest flight anyone has sat through? How did you guys do it? Do you have some tips?

How can we, as human beings, stay in a metal body in the air for this long? It is unnatural—I'd like to think that we're nomads, made to roam free, hair flying in the wind. We're suited to move our bodies. Why hasn't teleportation been invented yet? WHYY?

And also, because my very budget flight's multimedia system ☝️ looks like it's been time-travelled in from the 90s, I'll mostly be reading.

In-flight entertainment system

These are some books I'm planning to read (which I really will):

Kappa Quartet

It's the 10th anniversary since its publication in 2016, can you imagine!

And it's been 6 or more years since I first read it. I can't quite remember the story, but I remember enjoying it. It follows Kevin, a young man adrift in Tokyo—quite literally without a soul—who crosses paths with a kappa, one of Japanese folklore's river demons. Set between Singapore and Japan, the novel unfolds in eight interlocking parts, tracing the strange, serendipitous ripples of that one chance encounter across a cast of characters all bound to each other in ways they can't quite explain.

Surrender your soul

Fright 1

I hope this doesn't come with any planes crashing, falling, or ghosts on planes. Please.

Ghost stories and tales of fright have a long tradition in Singapore, and this anthology celebrates all subsets of the horror genre, told with a Singaporean twist. Featuring Meihan Boey, Dew M. Chaiyanara, Dave Chua, Jane Huang, Wen-yi Lee, Kelly Leow, Kimberly Lium, O Thiam Chin, Quek Shin Yi, Tan Lixin and Teo Kai Xiang.

Where horror feels familiar

New titles on Epigram Bookshop

Singapore Screening Spaces (1896–1945): Lost Screens & My Last Kacang Puteh

A lovingly assembled archive of Singapore's earliest film exhibition history, from the first travelling cinema in 1896 through to the end of World War II. Image-rich and deeply researched, it honours our film pioneers and the vanished spaces where Singaporeans once gathered to watch the world on screen.

Reserve your seat

Sidetrack

A quiet, meditative zine that follows eight unofficial paths threading through Singapore's Rail Corridor — all of them undocumented, all of them unmistakably human-made. Shot on film and digital in 2022, it's a book about the traces people leave behind, and what those traces whisper about how we move through the world.

Take the detour

Stories from the Islands: An Anthology of Indonesian Writing

A bilingual short story collection featuring ten emerging Indonesian writers, curated for Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2025. Spanning Indonesia's 17,000 islands, the anthology weaves together diverse voices, languages, and contemporary concerns into a vivid, multifaceted portrait of modern Indonesia.

Set sail