01 December 2010
29 November 2010
Too many??
Free bookmarks from buying at BBW and showing the receipts at BookXcess. 8D
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| One for every book from BBW... Still not enough!! :( |
26 November 2010
Looking at the prices...
Did some price comparison on the books I bought from BBW. The retail prices and BBW prices of the books are as follow :
Just realised how much money I saved.... XD
- Read for Your Life - RM 54.10 / RM 10.00
- In the Shadow of Man - RM 62.30 / RM 8.00
- The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank - RM 37.70 / RM 8.00
- All Creatures Great and Small - RM 38.90 / RM 8.00
- Every Living Thing - RM 34.90 / RM 8.00
- It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet - RM 29.90 / RM 5.00
- The White Tiger - RM 32.90 / RM 8.00
- Between the Assassinations - RM 32.90 / RM 8.00
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time RM 35.90 / RM 8.00
- Little Hut of Leaping Fishes - RM 35.90 / RM 8.00
- The Murder of King Tut - RM 32.90 / RM 8.00
- How to Instantly Connect with Anyone - RM 59.80 / RM 8.00
- Dr Mahathir's Selected Letters to World Leaders - RM 49.90 / RM 8.00
- Shooter - RM 30.40 / RM 8.00
- Psychic Warriors - RM 26.90 / RM 5.00
- A Case of Exploding Mangoes - RM 35.90 / RM 8.00
- Factory Girls RM 55.90 / RM 8.00
- A Colossal Failure of Common Sense - RM 54.90 / RM 8.00
- Dreams from My Father - RM 39.90 / RM 5.00
- Black Boy - RM 21.90 / RM 5.00
- The Elephant and the Dragon - RM 59.90 / RM 5.00
- The World Without Us - RM 60.80 / RM 5.00
- A Long Way Gone - RM 36.90 / RM 8.00
- Don't Sweat The Small Stuff Omnibus RM 49.90 / RM 10.00
Just realised how much money I saved.... XD
23 November 2010
The question is...
Are there books that even book lovers don't read? Books that some would say, "There's no way in #3LL that book(s) gonna end up on my shelf!!" ?
I'm not into romance/chic lit books. I doubt any guy is. Once a friend asked me to buy the Twilight series for her from an MPH book sale near my place. I said, "No problem". But when I was there picking up Stephenie Meyer's bestsellers, I said to myself, "Wait a minute. I'm standing here, alone, looking though romance novels. I sure hope no one sees me now!!"
Haha... it was a rather strange moment for me! :P
Is there any book(s) that you don't read?
I'm not into romance/chic lit books. I doubt any guy is. Once a friend asked me to buy the Twilight series for her from an MPH book sale near my place. I said, "No problem". But when I was there picking up Stephenie Meyer's bestsellers, I said to myself, "Wait a minute. I'm standing here, alone, looking though romance novels. I sure hope no one sees me now!!"
Haha... it was a rather strange moment for me! :P
Is there any book(s) that you don't read?
18 November 2010
Aftermath...
So what were the damages I made during the BBW book sale?
All in all, I'm RM 178 poorer after the 6-day sale. But I'm definitely 24-book richer!! Or should I say 26-book richer, since the omnibus is three-book-in-one?
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| The Haul |
All in all, I'm RM 178 poorer after the 6-day sale. But I'm definitely 24-book richer!! Or should I say 26-book richer, since the omnibus is three-book-in-one?
16 November 2010
Long time no see...
It's been.... over 2 months since my last post?! Hmm, didn't realise it was that long.
So what's new? The Big Bad Wolf book sale, of course!! It's held at South City Mall from 12 to 17 November 2010. It's a bit far from home, but the venue was much better, with larger space, well air-conditioned, ample parking space and more books!!!
Lucky for me, the first day of sale happened to be one of my off-day. So I was able to be there early in the morning. As expected, there was already a line waiting at the entrance when I arrived around 9am.
Everyone was patiently waiting in line with their trolleys and shopping bags, anticipating their huge purchases. Finally, at 10am, the entrance was opened and thankfully, people were actually walking in slowing instead of like some crazed fans at a concert. Many of them took boxes given out by the staff as they expected to buy tonnes of books. I didn't expect myself to buy a lot, so I only brought a backpack for my water, camera and keys, and a shopping bag.
Surely enough, the whole place was filled with people. Perhaps due to the size of the venue and the location of South City Mall, it was not as packed as the time at Amcorp Mall. But it was definitely "human mountain human sea".
There were definitely more books for everyone to choose from. It was a book lover's heaven!
After finished selecting their books, or run out of bags and boxes to carry more, they either line up in front of the cashiers to pay or place their filled boxes at the reservation area and went back for more.
The book sale was such a success, a scene like this is not surprising.
And there were still people lining up to get in!!
How many books did I buy? Just 18, mostly non-fiction. And it only cost me $161, considering that I would have to pay four times more under normal retail price!! The last day of the sale is on 17th. Will I go back again? Hmmm....
After this, I'm thinking of going slow on my purchases. I haven't read as many books as I used to lately, my collection of unread books is piling up and I'm running out of space to store them. I'll have to rearrange my room before I start breaking the bank for more books. (-.-")
So what's new? The Big Bad Wolf book sale, of course!! It's held at South City Mall from 12 to 17 November 2010. It's a bit far from home, but the venue was much better, with larger space, well air-conditioned, ample parking space and more books!!!
Lucky for me, the first day of sale happened to be one of my off-day. So I was able to be there early in the morning. As expected, there was already a line waiting at the entrance when I arrived around 9am.
 |
| The early birds |
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| The not-so-early birds |
Everyone was patiently waiting in line with their trolleys and shopping bags, anticipating their huge purchases. Finally, at 10am, the entrance was opened and thankfully, people were actually walking in slowing instead of like some crazed fans at a concert. Many of them took boxes given out by the staff as they expected to buy tonnes of books. I didn't expect myself to buy a lot, so I only brought a backpack for my water, camera and keys, and a shopping bag.
Surely enough, the whole place was filled with people. Perhaps due to the size of the venue and the location of South City Mall, it was not as packed as the time at Amcorp Mall. But it was definitely "human mountain human sea".
 |
| Looking... |
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| Grabbing... |
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| Uncle looked a bit lost... |
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| Look at the crowd!! |
There were definitely more books for everyone to choose from. It was a book lover's heaven!
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| So many books!! |
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| Not one empty corner was spared |
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| More books!! |
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| More books stored aside to sustain the sale |
After finished selecting their books, or run out of bags and boxes to carry more, they either line up in front of the cashiers to pay or place their filled boxes at the reservation area and went back for more.
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| Paying the price... happily |
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| Just from one customer! Would you see this at other book sale? |
And there were still people lining up to get in!!
How many books did I buy? Just 18, mostly non-fiction. And it only cost me $161, considering that I would have to pay four times more under normal retail price!! The last day of the sale is on 17th. Will I go back again? Hmmm....
After this, I'm thinking of going slow on my purchases. I haven't read as many books as I used to lately, my collection of unread books is piling up and I'm running out of space to store them. I'll have to rearrange my room before I start breaking the bank for more books. (-.-")
30 August 2010
MPH e-Reader Fair
An e-Reader Fair is being held at MPH Mid Valley from 27 August to 19 September 2010. This fair is located at the main entrance of the bookstore, with three glass case displays showing four different e-Readers available for sale; five if you include the Hanlin v5 which was only available for online purchase.
The four e-Readers were iRiver Story, BenQ K60 nReader, Hanlin v60 and Oaxis BK6001. While the fair does include the Oaxis BK5001 TFT and was labeled as an eReader, it was technically a PDA with LCD display, instead of the e-paper technology used in actual e-Readers. So I won’t review it here.
You can go online to look for detailed specifications and reviews of these products, so I’ll just going to tell you my personal experience while testing these e-Readers.
The first e-Reader the promoter showed me was the BenQ K60 nReader, the latest edition to MPH’s e-Reader selection. Priced RM 1,199, it was the most expensive and also the thickest e-Reader among the four. It was the only one with touchscreen capability, so to “turn” a page, aside from using the two buttons located on the right-side of the unit, you can slide your finger across the screen from right to left to read the next page or left to right for the previous page, which was kind of cool. You can also use the touchscreen to perform functions such as writing a memo using the onscreen keyboard. It was also the only e-Reader with WiFi capability, so you can download books directly from the Internet.
Everything sounded nice, but it didn’t attract me as a potential buy. First, it was the most expensive e-Reader at RM 1,199, as I said earlier on. I was looking for cheaper e-Readers and there were two alternatives selling for less than RM 1,000. Second, the response time of the e-Reader can be frustrating. At one point, I have to wait for several seconds before a new page was displayed or when changing its font size. The same thing happened when the promoter brought in a second nReader. It could be an isolated case, because when I went back to the bookstore to take a second look at the e-Readers, the nReader seemed to work properly and loading a page took only a second.
The second e-Reader the promoter showed me was the iRiver Story. It was sold for RM 1,099. What I like about this e-Reader was that it was a lot slimmer than the nReader, it has the page-turning buttons on both sides of the unit so it was suitable whether you’re left- or right-handed, and I was comfortable with the response time. Its catalogue boasted that the iRiver Story has the “Widest Range of File Format Support Among eBook Readers”, which was a definite plus.
Sadly, the iRiver Story has its minuses too. It was over RM 1,099, so price-wise it was not a preferable option for me. The e-Reader did not have a smooth polished surface, so it could get dirty easily and might not be removed as easily. What really surprised me though was that I have to actually buy a separate charger for the e-Reader! All the others included their own chargers, how come this one needs a separate charger?! That was just unbelievable!
The last two e-Readers were the Hanlin v60 and Oaxis BK6001, priced RM 899 and RM 699 respectively. I was looking more closely at these two devices, mainly because they were the cheapest. Unfortunately, there were no eBooks loaded into the e-Readers, so I couldn’t check its quality and functionality properly.
On the surface, both eReaders were smaller than the BenQ nReader and iRiver Story, with Oaxis BK6001 (I think MPH may have mistaken Oaxis as Oasis) being the slimmest among the four. It comes with black or white in colour. It looked like a larger version of PDAs with a directional button on the lower centre. Its page-turning button was on the right side and it was the smallest among the four e-Readers. With just around 4mm in width and 2cm in length, turning pages might become an unpleasant experience.
The Hanlin v60 has a QWERTY keyboard like iRiver Story and its page-turning buttons were on the left side. The keyboard buttons were smaller compared to iRiver Story therefore it may not be easy to use for those with large hands. What I really don’t like about Hanlin v60 was its memory card port. It was located at the back of the e-Reader and to insert or remove the memory card, you have to remove a small plastic cover first to expose the port. It immediately reminded me of those cheap toys from pasar malam where you need to remove the plastic cover to put the batteries in. A huge minus!!
So which e-Reader I bought, you might ask? Well… none! I didn’t buy any of them. I never had the intention of purchasing one when I visited the fair that day. I was there simply to survey. While Hanlin v60 and Oaxis BK6001 were the cheapest and within my budget (if I ever decide to buy one), I wasn’t able to test them properly to see if they were user-friendly. If they were a real headache to use, I would rather spend more and buy the iRiver Story instead.
I’m not sure if I'll actually buy one. I’ll have to do some research first before I can make a decision. Will I switch sides from reading tangible books to electronic books only? Most likely not. There’s something about reading actual books and having a large collection at home, looking at them with great satisfaction. Having an e-Reader and reading e-books would no doubt be a nice plus but definitely won’t be a replacement for actual books.
The four e-Readers were iRiver Story, BenQ K60 nReader, Hanlin v60 and Oaxis BK6001. While the fair does include the Oaxis BK5001 TFT and was labeled as an eReader, it was technically a PDA with LCD display, instead of the e-paper technology used in actual e-Readers. So I won’t review it here.
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| Some mistakes with the names if you look carefully |
The first e-Reader the promoter showed me was the BenQ K60 nReader, the latest edition to MPH’s e-Reader selection. Priced RM 1,199, it was the most expensive and also the thickest e-Reader among the four. It was the only one with touchscreen capability, so to “turn” a page, aside from using the two buttons located on the right-side of the unit, you can slide your finger across the screen from right to left to read the next page or left to right for the previous page, which was kind of cool. You can also use the touchscreen to perform functions such as writing a memo using the onscreen keyboard. It was also the only e-Reader with WiFi capability, so you can download books directly from the Internet.
 |
| BenQ K60 nReader |
The second e-Reader the promoter showed me was the iRiver Story. It was sold for RM 1,099. What I like about this e-Reader was that it was a lot slimmer than the nReader, it has the page-turning buttons on both sides of the unit so it was suitable whether you’re left- or right-handed, and I was comfortable with the response time. Its catalogue boasted that the iRiver Story has the “Widest Range of File Format Support Among eBook Readers”, which was a definite plus.
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| iRiver Story |
The last two e-Readers were the Hanlin v60 and Oaxis BK6001, priced RM 899 and RM 699 respectively. I was looking more closely at these two devices, mainly because they were the cheapest. Unfortunately, there were no eBooks loaded into the e-Readers, so I couldn’t check its quality and functionality properly.
On the surface, both eReaders were smaller than the BenQ nReader and iRiver Story, with Oaxis BK6001 (I think MPH may have mistaken Oaxis as Oasis) being the slimmest among the four. It comes with black or white in colour. It looked like a larger version of PDAs with a directional button on the lower centre. Its page-turning button was on the right side and it was the smallest among the four e-Readers. With just around 4mm in width and 2cm in length, turning pages might become an unpleasant experience.
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| Oaxis BK6001 |
I’m not sure if I'll actually buy one. I’ll have to do some research first before I can make a decision. Will I switch sides from reading tangible books to electronic books only? Most likely not. There’s something about reading actual books and having a large collection at home, looking at them with great satisfaction. Having an e-Reader and reading e-books would no doubt be a nice plus but definitely won’t be a replacement for actual books.
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