40 Stories

40 Stories is a book about Singapore, structured like a 40-storey HDB block. You don’t just read this book. You climb it.

Each floor contains one story. Each story is exactly one page long.

Rather than following a traditional plot, the book moves through a building — capturing different people, conversations and moments on each level. All of them are drawn from real life in Singapore’s heartlands.

The stories come from coffee shops, corridors and everyday heartland encounters. A hawker who had no choice but to pull his date into the stall to help during a rush. A man hiding a tattoo from his mother for years. Parents who turned out not to be lonely at all — they just needed a fourth mahjong player.

Individually, they are small, self-contained moments. Together, they form a portrait of Singapore that is familiar, specific and recognisable to anyone who has lived here.

The book is designed to reflect how life in Singapore is actually experienced — not as a single narrative, but as many different lives happening side by side in the same building  .

Short enough to read in one sitting, but structured in a way that encourages readers to dip in and out, 40 Stories offers a different way of looking at everyday life in Singapore.

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