Book Thrifting is Surprisingly Fun (?)
In December 2020, I went to one of the book thrift shops in Sanur, Bali. I found this square-shaped store on the internet when my broke ass was looking for a secondhand bookstore in Bali. The store was built with glass so we could see the entire store from the outside. I wasn’t sure if the store was still open at that time. I couldn’t see anyone sitting inside as they were waiting for customers.
A kitten was lying in a cardboard box next to the glass wall. He looked so lonely. When we entered the store, he approached us right after. I could tell he was so lonely by the way he clung to my friend’s feet.
As a person who hasn’t been gone book thrifting, I found this place quite fascinating. The smell of old books filled the entire store. When my friend opened the door, and shouted “halo”, an old man appeared and greeted us. He explained to us about their collection where we could find books based on the languages we were looking for. There were English, Dutch, German, and Japanese. I’m pretty sure there were more languages that we hadn’t discovered yet.
There were plenty of books that both of us couldn’t even decide which section we should look into first. Then we decided to jump into the English section. They were mostly fictional books when on the other hand, I was looking for a nonfiction book. I had to look up every single book to see whether they fit my expectations. Until I pulled out a shocking-purple-colored book. I was shocked when I read the summary because It was not a fictional book! It was a book about playwriting titled “The Art of Dramatic Writing” written by Lajos Egri. My other find was a book about the journey of Christopher Ondaatje in Punanai titled “The Man-Eater of Punanai : A Journey Of Discovery To The Jungles Of Old Ceylon”.
Knowing that these books actually came from the 90s and above mesmerized me. Especially the books I mentioned earlier, they were from the 70s and 90s.
Right after I found the second book, my attention was stolen by the stacks of books at the front corner of the store. When I glanced at them from a distance I thought they were kind of old magazines. And I was right. But they were not only magazines. They were more like those books that you could find in a hotel lobby or any waiting corner at a tourist destination place. A mini-encyclopedia about certain places. There were also plenty of Japanese books which we obviously could not understand.
When we were focused on looking at the stacks of magazines, a lady went in and greeted us, “halo, apa kabar?” along with a warm smile painted on her face. She talked about how most of the customers were property owners and they usually buy bundles of books as properties for their villas and hotels. After a brief chit-chat session, I asked her the price of the books that I wanted to buy. She offered fifty thousand rupiah for both books. I’m pretty sure you can bargain the price but I was lazy so I paid the amount she offered me.
What makes me excited is that knowing this place is filled with lots of random books I don’t know whether I will find any books that interest me. Looking up the book one by one is definitely the art of book thrifting. I want to come back to this place. The owner was kind and considerate to their customer. The place was not so neat (understandable, not many people went to a secondhand bookstore), but it has a nostalgic vibe that makes me want to stay for a quite long time. Those are the reasons why I chose this place as one of my go-to places to find secondhand books.
