One nice thing about no longer being the only bookworm in the family is that it’s easier to go to book sales. I was intrigued by the Books Box Sale, but since it was all the way in AMK and book sales generally aren’t suited to public transport (I can’t carry that many books back), I needed an alternative method. So I told my brother about the sale and we teamed up to get our mom to drive us there and be an extra pair of hands (although in the end, I carried the full box back).

The main attraction of this sale is the ‘book buffet’. You can get as many books as you want for $50 as long as you can fit it into one of their boxes. Given that they’re selling one book at $8 and three for $20, as long as you can fit 8 or more books into a box, it’s worth it to buy by the box.

I was actually a little curious as to whether or not I’d find anything I want, given that almost all the books on my wishlist are pretty hard to find (at this point, they’re either about Heian Japan or Tea) but it turns out that if you bring the price of a book low enough, I’d find something that I want to read. It’s pretty much the demand curve in action – at a higher price, I’d probably opt to get the book at a library, but for a lower one, I’m comfortable taking the risk to buy a book.

The sale is still on (it’s until the 16th) so if you’re in Singapore, you can still make it! Just be warned: there is no air-conditioning there so it gets really stuffy. They have fans, but it’s not enough.

Plus, the place is huge:

I think the split was about 55-45 Nonfiction to Fiction. It might just be me, but I felt that nonfiction books had slightly more tables than fiction. Either way, we managed to find an entire box worth of books!

We were actually a bit worried that our box was going to be rejected cause it was didn’t close all the way through, but then we saw the people in front of us. The lids of their box couldn’t even come together so we realised we packed rather conservatively.

Since we just sorted the books into “want” and “don’t want”, we didn’t know how many books we bought until we got home.

The grand total is 25 BOOKS! 15 for me, 9 for my brother, and 1 for my mom.

My haul can be divided into four categories.

First, colouring books! I’ve never tried this because the books are pretty expensive here, so I got a few to try. I don’t know if it will really help calm me down/de-stress, but it’s so pretty that it has to be worth a shot.

The books I got are:

• Animal Kingdom by Millie Marotta
• The Time Garden by Daria Song
• Creative Christmas – yes, I am already looking forward to the season
• The Jungle Book based on the story by Rudyard Kiping – Super excited about this one for obvious reasons

Second, baking books! Okay, one is no-bake but they’re all about making food. I actually saw a book on the Great British Bake-Off in the preview photos of the sale and was excited about that, but when I got there, I realised that the book is about the show and doesn’t actually contain recipes. I’m pretty excited to try these and maybe they’ll kickstart me into using all my cookbooks regularly (I pretty much cook only from my Japanese ones now – and even that only infrequently).

The books I got are:

• Christmas Cookies to Make and Bake – are you sensing a theme here? HAHAHA
• No-Bake Baking by Sharon Hearne Smith – Almost all my “baking” during my uni days was no-bake so let’s see if this inspires me to take that up again.
• Buttercream One-Tire Wonders by Valeri Valeriano & Christina Ong – I’ve never made a buttercream cake but they look so pretty that I want to try

Third, non-fiction books! I realised that when books go on sale, I tend to find it easier to buy non-fiction books – perhaps because it’s easier to guess if I’m interested in a topic. Although this time, I bought the same amount of fiction books so maybe it was just a phase.

The books I got are:

• Are Numbers Real? by Brian Clegg – I’m not a math person, but this sounds interesting)
• TED Talks by Chris Anderson – I’ve read How to Deliver a TED Talk and it was good so hopefully this is just as useful!
• In the Land of Giants by Max Adams – The British History Podcast and History of English podcast, combined with my upcoming trip has got me interested in the UK and its history. So this book on the middle ages is right up my alley.
• Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane by Paul Thomas Murphy – True Crime, need I say more?

The last category would be fiction! This time, it’s all historical fiction, which is a bit of a surprise for me. I didn’t think I picked up so many from this genre. If I remember correctly, there are also quite a few thrillers and YA books around, but none screamed “take me home” so I guess I’ll see the books in the library. Maybe.

The books I got are:

• Death & Mr. Pickwick by Stephen James – the book is new but the cover looks like this! It’s inspired by Dickens and his society so I’m pretty excited to read it.
• Daughter of the Wolf by Victoria Whitworth – It’s set in England before the Norman conquest, which I think is where I’m at in the podcasts. Should be interesting!
• The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine Clements – This is the only one of the books that’s not in tip-top shape because it’s the only copy I can find. Still, I liked the cover and the blurb sounded interesting so into the box it went.
• The Secrets of Gaslight Lane by M.R.C. Kasasian – A historical mystery! Sounds promising already.

And even though my haul is only 15 books, my brother took back a pretty interesting looking haul, so I may end up borrowing some books from him. I want to say that I won’t be going to the library for a good while after this, but I have a feeling that I will just alternate between library books and the books I bought here because I really do love visiting and borrowing books from the library. I probably won’t be reading ebooks for a while though – not unless I’ll be going somewhere that makes bringing paper books inconvenient!

(Yes, I am aware that I just wrote a post celebrating eBooks. But I do love both forms of books and there’s a time for everything. A time for ebook binges, and a time for physical book binges)