National Library Booksale Frenzy

18-20 July 2008 was the long awaited National Library Booksale in Singapore. I have marked my calendar since a month before for this annual event. This year was my second time joining the book-lovers-crowd in a hunt for S$2-each-quality-books.

The book-lovers crowd

Without hesitation, I went there three days in a row. Other than being a sale freak, I had my reason for that.
Day 1: Hey, it was the first day, of course I did not want to miss it.
Day 2: Saturday. It was my hubby's turn. For sure his office would not grant him a day leave just so he could feed his crave for book sale. In that case, day 2 was pretty much his day 1. And I, voluntarily joined him.
Day 3: Okay, what could be a good reason for day 3? Fortunately, my sister and his friends came all the way from Batam only for this book sale event. As good hostes, my hubby and I accompanied them there.

... and on each day, i took home some books. In three days we bought a total of 36 books for only S$70.00! Yayy!!
Day 1: 15 books
Day 2: 11 books
Day 3: 10 books

We thought that it would be such a waste to miss the opportunity to buy good books in such a low price. All books were S$2.00 each. Some books in Chinese/Malay/Tamil were even only S$1.00. Magazines were sold in a bundle of 10 magazines for the price S$5.00/bundle.
Crazy price.

Now you know why I did not want to miss it.

Novel mania, do not worry. There were plenty of novels in any genre.
Children books were also overabundant. You can even leave your children in a corner with a pile of children books without worrying that they would cry over missing parents.

I give you some tips for shopping in this booksale event.

1. Bring your own trolley or even a luggage to carry your purchased books (your baby stroller would also do). Trust me, you'll need it. And don't worry about looking not cool with the trolley/luggage. Many people are doing the same thing. At the end of the day, you'll thank yourself for willing not to look cool with the trolley/luggage.
Bring your own trolly or risk having a back ache after carrying those heavy books.

2. When you find this-is-probably-a-good book, do not think to much. Just take it first. You can sort out later and decide whether you're buying it or not.
To buy or not to buy :P
That's me sorting out some books. See my trolley in front of me.

3. Be sure to check on other people's book-rejects. They're usually specific in one certain field. For example, a person who is interested in photography will collect as many photography books as he can. So if you're interested in photography as well, all you have to do is just sort out the book you want from his rejects.

4. Sometime your friend would ask you to find him a certain-titled book. For this event, do not accept that kind of request. Chances are slim for you to find it; you would probably get a headache instead.

5. Do not envy for other people's books. The books you get depend on your own luck. :P So keep hunting!
Keep hunting!

6. For those of you who bring your children (maybe aged 4 and above) along, please do this before hunting for books. First, take your children to the DJ table and then teach them to tell the DJ that they're looking for their parent. Make sure your children know your full name so that the DJ then can announce it over his microphone. Make that DJ table as your meeting point just in case you were separated from your children, or vice versa.

Here are some books we took home from the event.
Some marketing, finance, and engineering books
Hobby: Mountaineering, Canoeing, Cooking
Photography related books
Miscellaneous category books

So, everyone, mark your calendar for the next year National Library Booksale. ^_^

Enjoy more photos here.

Ah yes! I just found out that there was this buy-one-get-one-free policy on the last day after 6pm. It means the S$2.00 books became S$1.00 each, and the S$1.00 books became S$0.50 each. That way, one could just do the payment after 6pm to get a cheaper price. Hahah!