Across cities in Malaysia, groups of people have begun quietly gathering in parks to read – no discussion, no assigned texts, just shared silence and books. In Kuala Lumpur’s botanical gardens, mats are unfurled beneath the trees as readers lose themselves in novels, forming a ritual that has quietly caught on.
It is one of several signs pointing to a revival in the country’s reading culture. Yet even as Malaysians flock to book fairs and devour literature in record numbers, a parallel surge in…