Teddy and I breathe books. We make sense of the world through stories, we travel because of books, and the best friendships in our lives are intertwined by reading. POST, our independent bookshop in Pasar Santa, is a way for us to bring together our love for books and our desire to connect with new people who feel as strongly as we do about books. We are lucky that the first two months of 2016, two months that seemed to have flown by, were filled by people who wanted to collaborate with POST in new ways outside of Pasar Santa. Here is short note to celebrate our collaborators, the people who have written about their experiences in our experimental events, and the people we met.

Cups and Pages Vol. 3 : A New Leaf with Living Loving and Kemala Home Living

Cups and Pages started as a small gathering for us to meet new people and get to know them through books, and in January, we decided to tweak the format to include more people and have deeper conversations. To celebrate the new year, we chose the theme A New Leaf and invited Ayu Larasati and Kania Annisa to share books that shaped their journeys of turning over a new leaf as creative entrepreneurs. Miranti wrote about the gathering in the LivingLoving blog.

Kenduri Kata with Suar Art Space

Back in December, Suar Art Space told us about their plans to debut their first event with writers and we jumped at the opportunity to try a writing jamming session, where different people write one story by taking turns in writing sentences. The process was facilitated by four writers who are also friends of POST: Adimas Immanuel the poet, Arman Dhani the essayist, Irfan Ramli the screenwriter, and Syarafina Vidyadhana the writer who co-founded The Murmur House. Nico Novito wrote a lively report of the event for The Jakarta Globe.

Wego Hangout: Travel for Books 

Travel stories about books have a special place in our hearts, so we’re ecstatic that Wego wanted to collaborate with us to include that as a theme in their Hangout series. I had the chance to share POST’s book hunting experience in London, Hanny Kusumawati talked about how books brought her to India and Pakistan, and Arman Dhani showed us libraries and independent bookshops across Indonesia. You can read a recap at the Wego site.

Pojok Buku with Seumpama Books and 1/15 Coffee

Cafes are one of our favorite places to read, so we’ve always wanted to create different experiences related to books and reading in a cozy cafe in Jakarta. Seumpama Books, a new independent book studio powered by two dynamic ladies, had the same idea. We both brainstormed with 1/15 Coffee and came up with Pojok Buku, a three-week initiative throughout February that included a reading corner in the cafe, a Blind Date with a Book for Valentine’s Day, storytelling sessions for children by Seumpama, readers gathering by POST, and a final hurrah in the form of a book bazaar. Media Indonesia covered the collaboration in their Sunday edition.

The first two months of 2016 were ones filled with books, ideas, and collaboration with people – artists, cafes, travelers, writers, entrepreneurs – who have a special place for the written word in their lives. Other than these events, weekends at POST were also filled with art exhibitions, book launches, writing workshops, and conversations that we won’t be able to always write about.

In March, we are looking forward to slowing down. POST will continue its activities in Pasar Santa, I’ll keep documenting the books I read on Instagram, but we’ll be making more time to write and travel. We’ll be heading to Japan in a few weeks and the list of bookshops to visit are already longer than temples and parks. We breathe books, after all.

Cheers,

Maesy