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Welcome to Gerakbudaya Bookshop

We are passionate about the books that matter

The newly expanded bookshop at 226 Lebuh Pantai is now open seven days a week, with the following hours: 11.00am–6.00pm (with late night opening till 8.00pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays)

 

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Orginally opened in 2014, and located in the heart of George Town’s world heritage site, the newly expanded Gerakbudaya Bookshop is an essential part of the city’s cultural life. The name of the bookshop is well chosen. In the Malay language, gerak denotes move while budaya means culture. We hope our presence helps stimulate fresh, radical ideas and new forms of cultural engagement in Penang and beyond.

 

Gerakbudaya Bookshop is a place for people who love books to meet, talk and, of course, browse. Visit us any time.

Featured Books
Preeta Samarasan

Featured Author
Preeta Samarasan

Preeta Samarasan grew up in Ipoh and received her education in Malaysia and the United States before moving to France in 2006. She is the author of two novels: Evening Is the Whole Day (2008), longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and Tale of the Dreamer’s Son (2022). Her short fiction and essays have appeared in literary journals around the world.

Bestsellers
Book of the Week
Latest News

We are absolutely delighted to announce the literary event of the year – The House of Doors: Tan T...

July 23, 2023

Friday 23 June, 7.30pm We are delighted that Books@Hikayat returns with a special event. It features...

June 9, 2023

The anticipated novel fro mthe Booker-shortlisted author Tan Twan Eng … exploring love, betray...

February 17, 2023

TO NOURISH WITH LOVE Manju Saigal and Bettina Chua Abdullah with Dipika Mukherjee Saturday 26 Novemb...

November 14, 2022

Copies of Karina Robles Bahrin’s superb Epigram Books Fiction Prize winner, The Accidental Mal...

November 7, 2022

We are delighted that Books@Hikayat returns with a very special event. It features two of Malaysiaâ€...

November 6, 2022

Salleh Ben Joned died earlier this week. There are moving tributes to him everywhere, from those who...

November 7, 2020

The past month has been tough for the bookshop – as for many businesses. But it’s still with...

November 7, 2020

Hanna Alkaf, The Weight of Our Skies(Simon & Schuster) Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (Peng...

September 5, 2020

Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Canongate) Bettina Chua Abdullah(ed.), Telltale Food (Hik...

August 10, 2020

âž˝ THE FREE GIVEAWAY RETURNSâž˝ FIGHT THROUGH CARTOONS by ZUNAR When one door closes another one op...

August 8, 2020

We are offering a special deal – no postage charges for all books bought online at the website and...

July 21, 2020

Tim Mackintosh-Smith in conversation with Gareth Richards Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tr...

December 31, 2019

Eclectic Cultures for All: The Development of the Peranakan Performing, Visual and Materials Arts in...

December 31, 2019

DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED Join us this Saturday for the latest Books@Hikayat event, co-organised...

May 4, 2019

Gerakbudaya Bookshop will once again be the official bookseller to the award-winning George Town Li...

June 23, 2018

        We have just concluded an arrangement for specially discounted prices on...

June 23, 2018

Venue: Penang House of Music, Level 4, KOMTAR Date: Sunday 5 November 2017, 4.00pm–6.00pm A celebr...

October 29, 2017

The Penang launch of Marco Ferrarese’s engaging new book, The Travels of Marco Yolo (Gerakbuda...

October 11, 2017

The Penang launch of Edmund Terence Gomez’s important new study of Malaysia’s political ...

September 4, 2017

The Penang launch of Bernice Chauly‘s outstanding debut novel, Once We Were There (Epigram Boo...

August 7, 2017

REHMAN RASHID (1955–2017). “The stories go on forever; they’d outlast eternity if they...

June 4, 2017

The wheel of time turns and we welcome the new month by looking back at the bestsellers’ list ...

May 4, 2017

It’s been a great privilege and pleasure over the past year and more to help produce a really wond...

April 29, 2017

The ebb and flow of what our customers buy is always fascinating, and there are two outstanding patt...

April 28, 2017

It’s already the first day of the new month – with the time seemingly passing in a blur – ...

March 18, 2017

JANUARY BESTSELLERS. It’s time to reveal the hot picks for the first month of the new year. On...

February 8, 2017

NOVEMBER BESTSELLERS. It’s no surprise that last month’s bestsellers’ list is domi...

December 23, 2016

OCTOBER BESTSELLERS. We’re a little late with this, so let’s get straight down to busine...

November 12, 2016

Shadow play – known as wayang kulit in the Nusantara and acknowledged in the West as an early form...

October 25, 2016

The months seem to be passing by all too quickly, and it’s already time to look back at the be...

October 5, 2016

GEORGE TOWN LITERARY FESTIVAL : WORDS MUSIC. It’s about time we did our second feature on this...

September 28, 2016

With all the excitement looking forward to the George Town Literary Festival, it’s time to sob...

September 28, 2016

GEORGE TOWN LITERARY FESTIVAL #1. It may only be a speck on the horizon … well, nearly three m...

September 4, 2016

In a fit of absent-mindedness we didn’t post about June’s bestsellers – so moving swif...

August 17, 2016

By any measure, Poh Soo Kai has lived an extraordinary life at the forefront of the political strugg...

July 18, 2016

Once again we look back at the month just gone – and try to read the runes when it comes to our re...

June 20, 2016

All over the world, a â€good girl’ is always quiet, obedient, knows her place and carries out her...

May 10, 2016

Once again we look back at the month just gone – and wonder why the year seems to be flying by, wh...

May 5, 2016

In light of the ongoing crisis of governance and widespread condemnation of the antics of the Najib ...

May 5, 2016

Now here’s a thing. Not one title appearing in the monthly bestsellers’ list for March w...

April 7, 2016

Once in a while a book comes along that captures the zeitgeist, the defining spirit of the times. Pe...

March 27, 2016

What does it mean to see the world as a poet does? The best answer is to join the annual celebration...

March 17, 2016

Once again, to cement a new permutation of political forces in Malaysia after the latest purges in U...

March 8, 2016

‘To survive, you must tell stories’. The line is from Umberto Eco who died on 19 Februar...

February 22, 2016

‘All that is broker must remain in the past’. That’s a reflective line from a very...

February 14, 2016

Tomorrow – 8 February – marks the lunar new year and the beginning of year of the monkey. The bo...

February 7, 2016

A new year but a return of an old favourite, with last month’s top ten bestsellers. Unsurprisi...

February 5, 2016

The Challenges of Writing in the Mainstream Media Nusantara Forum Saturday 30 January 2016, 7.30pm a...

January 23, 2016

The official Penang launch of Marco Ferrarese’s Banana Punk Rawk Trails (SIRD) was the centrep...

January 17, 2016

A final look back at the old year brings us to the bestselling titles of 2015. As a comparison, the ...

January 16, 2016

We are very honoured to be co-organising – together with the Penang Institute – a public talk (a...

January 25, 2015

When the late Felix Chia published The Babas in 1980, it was the first popular book to document the ...

January 25, 2015

Following the feature on the bookshop in this month’s Penang Monthly, there is a nice piece fr...

January 23, 2015

It was a total pleasure to have Tony Reid and his wife Helen in the bookshop yesterday, thanks to Ta...

January 21, 2015

Less than two years ago, an almost forgotten book became – seemingly out of the blue – the must-...

January 20, 2015

The third edition of the excellent lifestyle zine Something is already on the shelves. It’s bi...

January 18, 2015

We’ve recently acquired two books that offer thoughtful appraisals of two vernacular architect...

January 16, 2015

For well over two centuries Penang’s history was made at the confluence of where the monsoons ...

January 16, 2015

With two lauded collections of short stories and two superb novels, Jhumpa Lahiri has a claim to bei...

January 15, 2015

It was a bit of a shock to learn that our good friend and Penang legend, Kim Gooi was taken to the G...

January 15, 2015

It’s a line from Lukas Straumann’s excellent Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Ti...

January 14, 2015

There is no doubt that Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof is one of our great polymaths – someone who has produc...

January 13, 2015

Every now and then a new book arrives on the shelves that takes the breath away. Textiles of Southea...

January 10, 2015

Credit: Zunar  ...

January 9, 2015

As many of you know, we opened the bookshop’s doors on May Day 2014 – an auspicious day! Nat...

January 9, 2015

Hot of the heels of her splendid exhibition, Dressed Text, at Sinkeh, it’s a good time to cons...

January 7, 2015

With the catastrophic flooding and landslides in the east coast states still at the forefront of our...

January 6, 2015

In American Gods, Neil Gaiman makes the following pithy declaration: “What I say is, a town is...

January 5, 2015

Last week saw the launch of a new book from the eminent Penang historian Tan Kim Hong – The Story ...

January 5, 2015

Humans have long recognised the importance and value of maps to their lives. Indeed, maps are extrao...

January 3, 2015

With the George Town Literary Festival at the end of November having a very positive knock-on effect...

January 2, 2015

The bookshop will be closed today (Thursday) for New Year and back open again as normal on Friday. T...

December 31, 2014

The world lost some extraordinary writers in 2014 – some better known than others. Here are some o...

December 31, 2014

One of the great things about the bookshop is that it has become a magnet – a meeting place, a han...

December 31, 2014

This is the last of the bookshop team’s favourite books of the year – and here are Gareth&#8...

December 30, 2014

There’s no doubt that Chuah Guat Eng possesses one of the most distinctive and accomplished vo...

December 28, 2014

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami. Many of us will never fo...

December 26, 2014

While we wait for our readers to send in their choices of favourite books of 2014, here we present t...

December 24, 2014

We will be closing the bookshop tomorrow (Thursday) for Christmas Day. We will be open as normal on ...

December 24, 2014

While we wait for our readers to send in their choices of favourite books of 2014, here we present t...

December 23, 2014

We are proud to have been involved (through Impress Creative & Editorial) as the editors of this...

December 22, 2014

Usually the publication of a new book by Haruki Murakami elicits all kinds of fanfares and enormous ...

December 21, 2014

We’re fortunate to have acquired rare copies of two pioneering studies of Malay dance forms by...

December 20, 2014

While we wait for our readers to send in their choices of favourite books of 2014, here we present t...

December 19, 2014

Heritage Trees of Penang – is very close to our hearts and it’s been absent too long from ou...

December 18, 2014

We’re waiting to hear from you! It’s that time of year to look back and choose our favou...

December 17, 2014

One of the runaway bestsellers over the past few months has been unusual: the ingenious card game wh...

December 15, 2014

Goh Hun Meng has been a good friend of the bookshop since its inception – he designed our logo, th...

December 14, 2014

When it was announced that Patrick Modiano had won this year’s Nobel Prize for literature most...

December 13, 2014

Since Joko Widodo came to power earlier this year, there have been some important policy advances â€...

December 11, 2014

Thanks to our partnership with William Knox of The Penang Bookshelf, we have some lovely rare and ou...

December 11, 2014

We’ve not featured many cookery books here – though we stock a few good ones – reckoning t...

December 9, 2014

With the George Town Literary Festival at the end of the month, it is not at all surprising that mos...

December 8, 2014

There are a couple of excellent reports on the recent George Town Literary Festival which was, by co...

December 8, 2014

This month’s copies of Penang Monthly arrived in the bookshop today. As usual, there’s a...

December 6, 2014

We are very proud to be cooperating with the Women’s Centre for Change (WCC Penang) and Pusat ...

December 5, 2014

This week came the wonderful news that the great Toni Morrison will release her eleventh novel next ...

December 4, 2014

Poetry is – for reasons that are quite unfathomable – the Cinderella of the literary world. Perh...

December 2, 2014

This book is a labour of love and a long time in the making. More than three years ago Chin Yoon Khe...

December 1, 2014

The waiting is over, the bookstall is set up (and looking fine) and the writers are in town. And aft...

November 28, 2014

Just a day to go before the George Town Literary Festival’s official opening at The Whiteaways...

November 27, 2014

The George Town Literary Festival at The Whiteaways Arcade is almost upon us and the writers are cir...

November 27, 2014

For more than thirty years James C. Scott has been a towering and radical analyst of Malaysia, of So...

November 25, 2014

The excitement is building for this weekend’s George Town Literary Festival, with the launch o...

November 24, 2014

The George Town Literary Festival is less than a week away. In addition to the roster of excellent...

November 23, 2014

The past couple of months have seen the announcement of a number major prizes for literary fiction â...

November 22, 2014

The Malay Archipelago, the classic account of Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace’s tra...

November 21, 2014

So the KL NOIR – a Fixi Novo anthology in 4 volumes finally comes to a fitting finale. Hot off th...

November 21, 2014

“I remember sitting next to my brother on the dining table, legs dangling while my mother stoo...

November 19, 2014

The recent publication of a new edition of Syed Husin Ali’s classic Ethnic Relations in Malays...

November 18, 2014

The George Town Literary Festival is less than a fortnight away, so we’d better get a move on ...

November 17, 2014

Photograph by Jo Wallace (https://www.flickr.com/photos/38791739@N02/5597176691/in/52weeksofspnp/) T...

November 15, 2014

We’ve been pretty quiet here recently – so apologies are in order, especially for those of y...

November 14, 2014

We’re REALLY behind with our monthly top of the pops, but here’s what you’ve been ...

November 14, 2014

  “This book is bad for my business reputation”! Our stock of Lukas Straumann’s M...

November 7, 2014

In an interview a few years ago, Marilynne Robinson described how once she’d finished writing a no...

November 6, 2014

There are, I think you’d agree, lots of beautiful books: books that are beautiful because of t...

November 4, 2014

And the winner is … Khoo Salma’s perennial chart-topper Streets of George Town. Salma&#...

July 9, 2014

And the winner is … When we opened the bookshop on May Day we didn’t know what to expect...

June 9, 2014
Reflections

  • One of the best selections of academic and non-academic books in Malaysia. Very passionate and knowledgeable staff. This is not just a bookshop, it is an institution and a community.

    Adil Johan - Writer and musician

  • The opening of a new bookshop is always a cause for celebration, especially when all we keep reading about is how bookstores worldwide are closing down. Every new bookshop that opens is another flaming torch holding back the darkening world.

    Tan Twan Eng - Author of The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists