Preview Sale of Big Bad Wolf Sale 2014

There’s a reason why I never recommend bringing kids along with you when you’re shopping books and why I went to warehouse sale mostly solo…

Moments before arriving to MIECC and several hours later…

Running, chasing, crying, tantrums….

Basically, I end up playing nanny again. Alif became super cranky when I went out of sight to browse or when his mother went away to browse herself. Most of the time I would sit in a corner with a koala on my torso and all I want was to go home.

I wish I could do something about the hair but when you’re hauling something with small hands, a bad hair day is guaranteed.

Considering its my sixth year since my first Big Bad Wolf sale in Amcorp Mall, I can see that they improved the overall selections. I do notice the fiction section was 1/5 of the amount of books exhibited. 2009’s Big Bad Wolf sale is still my favourite BBW experience despite the small venue and the dense crowd and snake queues but I still like MIECC although the parking was abysmal.

I didn’t bring camera or the tablet so I’m snitching my sister’s Big Bad Wolf pictures.

I am still disappointed by the Fantasy and Science Fiction tables (there’s only four tables for two of the largest genre for books… FOUR). I still see one whole table dedicated for piles of reprints of The Hobbit and Lord of The Ring. I saw minimal Urban Fantasy and some Paranormal Romances in general fiction section (the mixed fiction at the far back of the hall near the entrance) but I do find a lot of Vintage books (I still haven’t finish most of the Vintage classic I bought from the previous sales).

Because its a preview sale, I am glad that the crowd was manageable. The only reason why I want presale passes was to avoid accidental collision with books and strangers. I still get bruises from hauling Alif the Koala around. Oh, he can walk but he don’t like strangers and crowd scares him.

If this picture came with audio. It would be : “JANGAN PEGANG!!!!”

Side note to the organizer who love questionnaire survey rather than long form comments : There’s a better place to put this installment which was somewhere NOT at the same height as the children.

Personally, the only reason to go to the initial Big Bad Wolf sale was for the children’s book which was the bulk of the exhibition space. At least the kids enjoyed the sale more than I do.

I have a personal budget limit of RM50 (US$15) and thankfully, I am pleased with my haul.

I want the RM60 Mass Effect book but thankfully there was stacks of Mass Effect individual volumes to choose from. Although it was the last volume of the comic series but its just back story for ME3 so I don’t mind reading it out of sequence .

I am surprised to see stacks of P Ramlee’s Sitora Harimau Jadian. I’ve been meaning to get the book even at the normal price.

I have Amish’s Shiva trilogy on ebook format but it was harder to motivate myself reading new series via ebooks.

I’ve been searching for Midnight’s Children since forever. It was hard enough to read stream of consciousness on ebooks and in Kinokuniya, this specific volume was worth more than my collective pre-sale haul.

And the only Anna Karenina volume in the stacks. I hope the translation was good.

I saw Vintage reprint of Gaskell’s North and South and Huxley’s Brave New World and mulled about getting it too but I have a rule not to buy books I’ve already read. There’s a lot of good books in the fiction section but I’ve read most of it.

As for the food and beverage section, there was a lot of fast food available and we got ourselves some pizza. And is it me or KFC food = cup of salt.

There’s one incident that got one my sister pissed with the BBW staffs. We’re just several feet away from the cashier and in the middle of the haul at the coffee table books section where the crowd was minimal. We had to wait for my other sister to finish her own browsing before we could head out and pay.

While the kids are occupied (read: nephew with his mother and the exhausted girls sat quietly on the floor), I went down to count my own stacks from the suitcases and rearrange the haphazard books in the large suitcase. One of the BBW helper came and pointed out the sorting section. I said that I’m not sorting the books and the guy looked at me disapprovingly. For your information, the sorting section was just a small section of the allotted partition on the concrete floor. Everyone was taking their own space and it was hard enough to move in that crowded section. Let alone, you have four kids with you.

Ironically, several minutes later several family simply park themselves in the middle of the hall several feet from us and they sort their books loudly and happily. I know this because my sister commented on it. I turned and watched several dozen of BBW helpers walk by and ignore them all. Ten minutes later, they’re still there on the floor with their boxes and nobody came to them.

Big Bad Wolf organizers, was this a specific selective bias that I am not aware of?

On a side note, I will be going to the Aftermath sale when the Scifi and Fantasy section aren’t as abysmal as the normal BBW days. And please, keep the “That’s it?” comment to yourself. Honestly, there’s four Big Bad Wolf sales event in 2014 alone. Calm yer tits.

(And Says.com, if you want to steal the pictures or blog content again, suit yourself. Just know that you suck and I don’t know how you still get paid from copy pasting my shit)