Saturday, March 03, 2007

Warehouse Wonderland

Scooped up some books at the MPH warehouse sale yesterday.

The current sale differs from past MPH warehouse sales in that it is the distributor's sale (as opposed to the bookshop sale - MPH is both). The books are not only brand new but in some cases so new I haven't seen them in the bookshops yet.

And this is the first warehouse sale that actually takes place ... in a warehouse! Quite a crowd turned up and many people were buying by the boxload.

There were some generous reductions. I bought both parts of Adibah Amin's As I Was Passing for just RM16 each, a Collins Malay-English dictionary ('cos I lost my last one!) for RM10, Brickfields: A Place, A Time, A Memory by Balan Moses (RM22 down from RM30), and a hardback copy of Malaysian novelist Tinling Choong's Firewife for RM47 (price on Amazon is $21=RM73). All stuff I very much wanted.

Parking is a real nightmare. I left my car outside a building supplies store a couple of streets away and ran away from the security guard!

Aren't these copies of Collector's Library classics so pretty all piled up? Almost felt like buying them all as a piece of installation art. They cost RM9.90 each. I bought Nathaniel Hawthorn's The Scarlet Letter and Melville's Moby Dick. Things I should have read but haven't.

The sale ends tomorrow, and you can read more about it in the Metro section of the Star.

If you went - what did you buy???

28 comments:

Unknown said...

Do they accept credit card? I'm planning to go with a definite amount of cash, which I will not purchase beyond.

bibliobibuli said...

yes they do accept credit cards, chet

Artemis Hunt said...

Sharon, I'm running a title contest for Dark City 2. Could you please let your readers know so they can participate with their creative juices?

Thanks!

BTW, sent you a SMS yesterday on Nizam Zakaria.

Xeus

Anonymous said...

Arghh!!! Look at all those books! And me not going, me not buying! *huffs heavily, breathes, relaxes*

Oh, but is my wallet gonna thank me for this or what...

Still, all them pretty, pretty books... *sighs*

bibliobibuli said...

xeus - can't find nizam's number but you can contact him via his blog or maybe call aliza at mph (or he might just see this passing by)

and yes, i'll put up a note about the title - glad to! one of the participants in a previous creative writing class was very very happy after you gave her such positive feedback on her story ...

never mind kenny. there will soon be the next sale along, and i just get guiltier about all the books i've acquired but not read yet!

Anonymous said...

http://daria.be/archives/163

i posted about it in my book blog too.

Anonymous said...

whoops, broken link. basically i bought

agatha christie's 'and then there were none' and enid blyton's 'the wishing chair collection'.

broke and in want of a second childhood, lol.

bibliobibuli said...

there were lots of agatha christies ... hope you find you second childhood sulz!

synical said...

I ended up with 3 books: 2 Ben Eltons (Stark and Gridlock) and Matthew Pearl's The Poe Shadow.

Artemis Hunt said...

Good to hear, Bib :)

Chet said...

Small haul.

Two by Adibah Amin (you know which two)

Two by Amitav Ghosh

Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

Yiyun Li's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

I dipped into The Alchemist and fell in love.

Oh, when I was there, I heard an announcement about the different categories of books on sale, and this gem:

"For those of you who don't like to read, there are audio books you can buy."

Hahahaha ...

And I have some tales of frustrated parking - not mine, but others, which I will put up on my weblog in a while.

bibliobibuli said...

oh yes chet - do tell the parking stories!! it was funny - as i was walking back to my car (miles and miles away!) two women in a big car stopped - one a new zealander the other and american. they offered me a lift back to my car, and i though "that's kind". i realised though that they (clever people) actually wanted my space. when i'd moved out and they'd parked i could give them a lift back, miles and miles, to the sale!

bibliobibuli said...

actually chet - i missed the audio books. keep thinking i should buy some for the car.

"a thousand year of good prayers" was there? must tell my reading group guys as it is their next read. how much was it?

synical - those sound like good choices. i've not read ben elton but love him as a comedian.

Unknown said...

Hardback at RM35/-.

I've posted and shared the funniest of the parking stories.

I didn't stay long cuz it was stuffy and I was beginning to get a headache.

Tomorrow, the last day, will be a nightmare!

Anonymous said...

That's so true, Sharon --- I've got stacks of books still unread. Really can't go out and buy more when these poor things stare at from the shelves, asking, "When will you read me?"

Joshua said...

Hei, anyone knows how to get there by public transport, since as almost everyone said that the parking was a nightmare. Do enlighten me as I plan to go there tomorrow.

bibliobibuli said...

public transport? i guess you have to just get to jalan kemajuan and start walking. wear comfortable shoes and take a bottle of water.

myabe though someone else reading this blog might be able to give you a lift. whereabouts do you stay??

Anonymous said...

after my sister and i thought we were going to die in our car, as a kelisa had parked haphazardly by a tree, thereby sticking its ass out and blocking traffic on one lane, thereby forcing the deprived book-loving masses to move into the other lane, thereby going against traffic of the OTHER LANE and causing a standstill, thereby halting a huge-ass trailer right in front of the book sale, thereby forcing us for about 30 mins or so to watch happy, dusty people return from the sale with bags and bags of books... to SEE the sale yet be so far from it... after making about 5 rounds and turning into a little lane and parking our car haphazardly by a tree... i stumbled out into the street, stumbled into the warehouse, and nearly passed out from excitement from the long corridors of books that only lead to more books, after ALL THAT, i bought:

the glass palace by amitav ghosh, and a volume of tintin's comics, and two enid blyton books (The Wishing Chair stories) for my nephew.

4 books! can you beat that.

bibliobibuli said...

haha you really caused chaos!!

yes, i question whether in the end it was worth it for the stress induced by parking. suggestion for mph and times. hold sales in the venues that big bookshop and pay less use

Anonymous said...

sharon - another book for you. as appreciation for help in editing etc, IAM is waiting for you in silverfish...

bibliobibuli said...

very many thanks ms d. :-D

Anonymous said...

Let's see..

A Tony Buzan "Mind Maps" book.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrarri.

3 Terry Pratchett Discworld books.

Could have got more, but I had to remind myself not to go broke so early in the year...

Anonymous said...

I got 4 of the books i always wanted. Jodi Picoult's Keeping Faith and Songs of the Humpback Whale. Plus Mark Haddon's new book 'A Spot of Bother' and the Man Book Prize 'the Inheritence of Loss' by Kiran Desai.

I wanted a lot more books because the prices were so reasonable! Thanks for the info on the sale, sharon!

Anonymous said...

Bet nobody can beat my parking story going to the MPH warehouse sale on Friday. Involved a big hole and 10 men. Curious?

bibliobibuli said...

sashi - yes, thanks goodness for self restraint!

debbie - you're most welcome, and glad you found some good stuff

oh yes animah. now you have to tell!

gRaCe said...

argghh!! so many books waiting for me to get my hands on! sighh.. but as Kenny said, my purse's gonna love me for not going. ;o)

sharkgila said...

I got 8 of those Collector's Library classics -

Madame Bovary (Flaubert)
Walden (Thoreau)
Grimm's Fairy Tales
The Age of Innocence (Wharton)
Treasure Island (Stevenson)
Gulliver's Travels (Swift)
Crime & Punishment (Dostoevsky)
and my all time favourite
Dracula (Stoker)

I went home kicking myself for not getting more of the series, but can't make myself go through that throng of elbows again. Ah, next year ..

bibliobibuli said...

sharkgila - yes, i'd like more of those classics ... it was hard to leave the rest behind as the books were so pretty and cheap