Big Bad Wolf Book Sale 2013 - 6th December 2013

6th December 2013

I work in a 24 hours manufacturing company, although my working time is just normal working hour, if there are any issues, the operator will not hesitate to call at the middle of the night and weekends. So, I worked really hard this morning to ensure that I didn't have any pending items that will drag to next week. Right after the bell rang for lunch, me and my friend, Dila just picked our stuffs and left the company to go to MIECC (the venue for the book sale).

We reached The Mines area around 2 pm, however the traffic condition was quite bad, many cars were waiting to enter the junction that leads to MIECC, if it's only slow, I wouldn't mind, but there were many inconsiderate drivers who cut from left hand side, so annoying!

The roads around MIECC were full of cars, luckily we got a parking space on the main road outside MIECC, the parking fee was RM5 per time, I think it's quite reasonable, after we parked the car, we tried to find the parking machine to get a parking ticket, but couldn't find one, so we decided to ask around, the parking area was manned by a staff at the road curb area, so manual! After we walked towards the building, then we realised that inside the MIECC, there's a parking building! However, I noticed that the indication on the parking bays was full, no empty bay left. We came on a really busy time. Since we haven't eat lunch, we had our lunch in The Mines Shopping Mall. The Mines Shopping Mall and MIECC is connected to each other with a covered passage way. 

After fulfilling lunch, we went to the book sale. To my surprise, compared to 2010 sales, this time around, we didn't have to queue to enter the hall, just walked straight and entered. The crowd was smaller than I anticipated (compared to the cars outside the building). Then, me and Dila split to find our own favourites after taking a box from the staff near the entrance (a fellow book lover asked me where to get the box when she couldn't hold the books with her hands, please remember to take a box near the entrance, or else it would be very tiring to walk back to the entrance with all the books). Initially, I wanted to target on non-fiction, but all the fiction looked so tempting, so I ended up with many novels today!

For the environment, the hall was quite spacious with enough space to manoeuvre with a luggage or box. Inside the hall, there were rest area with massage chairs, a play ground for kids and food stalls. Wow, people can spend hours inside without the need to left the building for anything at all. 

inside the hall of Big Bad Wolf Book Sale 2013

I didn't manage to go through all the sections, I didn't go to the travel, business and reference section. By the time me and Dila agreed to meet up, I just finished history section! Actually, I was thinking to buy a book on Microsoft Access, but I didn't find any books on programming and computer related stuffs, too big for me to browse everything! 

Dila focused on the hard cover, coffee table books. It's very expensive outside. There are many hard covers, although it's cheap (around RM15 ~ RM30), varied and very beautiful to look at, I think if I buy that, it will collect dust in a cabinet, so I didn't touch the hard covers at all. Back to Dila, since she bought all those hard covers, she almost fainted due to the weight of the books, she didn't know earlier that we could always park the books at a parking corner and continue for the next round, she even thought of just remembering the location of the books and picking it up when it's time to pay. Luckily, she found out the service! So, after choosing a few books, she just left the books on the parking area and went for next round. Hahaha!

Looks so familiar, I think I have seen it on Criminal Minds (drama) 

There are many interesting books. Some have colourful fore edge (just knew the name after googling for the parts of book). I found black, red and silver fore edge, quite tempting, but all were not to my liking. Too bad!

black fore edge

red fore edge

silver (mirror) fore edge

A corner with vintage signs on Too Precious section. The pop up books are available in a small room after Too Precious section. 

too precious corner

I queued up for around 40 minutes to pay for the books. Still ok, not too long, and the line was moving, not stagnant. So, I peeked into other people boxes, it's quite interesting to look at what other people buy. A lady behind me bought copies of Bible, an elderly couple bought many children's book, some have cookbooks only on their boxes, some have all sorts of books and some just bought 2 or 3 books, a rarity though. 

So, below are the books I bought from The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale 2013. I bought 20 books and it costs me RM153, very cheap!

This time around, I bought books from same authors, three books each from Terry Pratchett, Kathy Reichs and Alexander McCall Smith. I got all the books from different tables (even though from same author). The books were not arranged nicely with either authors' name or in alphabetical order. It was scattered around. I tried to find Neil Gaiman, but couldn't find it on Young Adult section and fiction section. A bit sad. Another sad part is I found "My Life in France" and it's only RM8, I think I paid 5 times more for it when I bought it in Japan.

Books from Terry Pratchett

Books from Kathy Reichs

Books from Alexander McCall Smith

local delights

something with cooperation (Dyson and Disney)

History

something about fairies

bought this book for the cover (from Young Adult section)

Angels and Demons from Dan Brown

In my company, there were many Filipino engineers, so I bought this Basic Tagalog book to learn some Tagalog. I tried to find language books on Myanmar language too, but couldn't find one. 

Basic Tagalog

For shopping, shopping bag is very important. To be a little bit of environment friendly, I bought 2 bags with me, one came from Seria (a 100 yen shop) and another came as a free gift by Maybank.

one of the bags I brought

I own many recycle bags, but I chose this yellow Maybank recycle bag because the joining area is stitched with thread, not the usual glued joining. I was worried that if I bought a glued type recycle bag, it would be damaged by the weight of the books.

one of the bags I brought

the joining area is stitched, not glued

Below the bill, there's a mention of membership for BookXcess, I still haven't claim my membership card from 2 years ago when I went to the bookshop to buy books and registered as member. I don't think I will buy more books in many months to come, I will try to finish as much as I can before I buy more books. This will be my resolution for 2014. Hahaha!

the bills (RM 153 for 20 books)

the book mark from The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale