Big Bad Wolf in Manila (Feb 15 2018)

Obviously this has not missed my radar. The first time I have heard of it I immediately followed their PH page and made them appear first on my feed. And on a strike of luck while we were on a train at Japan I checked Facebook to see a fresh post of them giving away passes. Later on I would find out that not only did I win, but I was THE FIRST to reply. I was really meant to go!

Initially I wanted to forgo the passes. But knowing the culture when it comes to book sales and going on a Saturday AFTER a holiday Friday is not a wise decision, I decided to just come on the Preview Day (Thursday). I will just render under time. Reagan came with (we met at Ayala, I really hate going there it's so hard to commute) to help me with my purchases. A friend of mine also came with (2 passes = 4 people) in case he could find books to add to his collection.

The first moment I came in I was overwhelmed. There's so much to see! At first we didn't have a system until Reagan and I decided to part ways so he could shop as well. The rightmost line of tables (after the ones by the wall) is so time consuming I remembered spending an hour just to finish that entire set AND that is even the quickest I could do without googling each and every title.



Top 10 Things You Should Now When Going:

1. Do not bring food or drinks. Reagan brought the chocolates we got from KL to return to me and while no one could possibly eat those chocolates there, we are still instructed to leave it outside.


2. Bring eco-bags or if you're a hoarder like me, yes, a suitcase. I saw someone with one (i'm too lazy to go back to get one) to which the only fault to this system is he have to lug it around together with his cart.


3. Carts are provided of different shapes and sizes. I totally missed the pushcart. Would have loved having that instead of the pull types.


4. Do not bring your friend who is absolutely not interested in books. Not only will they be competing with floor space, out of boredom some of them are messing the arrangement of books!


5. Speaking of, books are all in one pile with an opened copy labeled with SAMPLE over it so you don't need to open those with plastic.

 

6. Hall D is where you get to pay your purchases. Also, that is the only way for you to get out. When I met my friend I had to walk the entire stretch just to give him my extra pass instead of me handing it to him right at the entrance which is closer to where I am.

7. There's a sorting area for compulsive shoppers who could remove some items on their cart who had a sudden realization that they either couldn't afford all of it or had simply snapped out of the spell of gathering all the books they find.

8. Children's books and workbooks are plenty. They actually occupy more than General Fiction / Novels. There's also tons of recipe books and non-fiction.

9. Journals / Notebooks can be found at the cashier.

10. There are separate lines for Cash vs. Credit. It seems that they've reserved more cashiers for credit rather than cash.

It was a good experience. For a free event, I am satisfied. This is in spite of:

a. Not being able to see the titles I came for. I was hoping to get A Series of Unfortunate Events or DC Omnibus sets.

b. Seeing tons of series books ONLY to realize that you would never find the sequels to the books you wanted to try out.

c. Said series are in totally different tables. I don't know how they've arranged it but each table could have different authors, most of which could be found on other tables bearing other titles. You would literally have to take each of the series of the book until at the end you'd realize you could never complete a set then randomly leave it somewhere. I saw this phenomenon too often in this sale. It was disappointing because I am willing to spend more if I could only get the entire series home.

d. The assistants are all Jon Snows (unless I am just too unlucky to never have gotten an assistant who knows what I'm talking about) . THEY KNOW NOTHING. One of the things I love about shopping at Fullybooked and Powerbooks is how their people are knowledgeable on authors and titles. There was this girl I asked if they happen to have Harry Potter books (my officemate promised her daughter the copy of the last book and instructed me to look) and told me to go to General Fiction. The Cursed Child is literally not the only book in the series girl! The least you could do is at least know what you have!

There are tons of room for improvement for sure. IF anything, my only wish next time is that they arrange it by Author and show which titles are truly available for the set. For sure it's a win win situation since more people would be encouraged to buy more titles at once. For instance I would have completed the entire 13 books of the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov if given the chance.  I know I would.

BOOK HAUL!



 

Price: 6080PHP less 230 for the French book that isn't mine. 680 each for Batman, Wonderwoman and The Best of Foxtrot; 1960 - Paulo Coelho (I am not supposed to buy this, I was waiting for him to die, but oh well. Opportunities like this are rare)