I hate crowds. Big, maddeningly noisy, large crowds like the one congregating at the Colombo Book Fair annually make me very anxious. There’s not just the constant fear of getting lost or kidnapped but worse, running into someone you used to know. It feels like a steel ball lodged in the pit of your stomach and the weight of it engulfing your senses with each step at BMICH. Nope. NEVER AGAIN.
Enter Big Bad Wolf. One of Malaysia’s largest and greatest book sales comes to Colombo as advertised by 230 Interactive.
I got the awesome oppurtunity to shop for books a day before the mayhem begins thanks to the Geek Club. All of this via a Preview Pass which admits 2 people for 1 pass because book shopping on your own isn’t fun.
Tips on Taming The Big Bad Wolf
PACK at least 3 strong, reusable, green shopping bags like the variety found at Keells Super and Cargills. The plastic bags at the book sale are terrible. I had the unfortunate experience of my bag tearing open after checking out. Luckily, I had a strong, jute bag for an emergency.
WEAR comfortable, soft shoes. There’s a lot of walking to be done and wearing heeled shoes is a very bad idea.
PACK a water bottle. Book shopping requires constant hydration.
BRING your credit/debit card or cash. I would recommend cards because you don’t have to hold other customers in case you run of cash which you will.
BRING a book list.
More tips here: https://www.bigbadwolfbooks.com/lk/english/about-the-sale
How to Get To Big Bad Wolf?
The venue is SLECC. If you’re travelling from the 138 bus towards Colombo, get down at Lakehouse and walk towards it. You cannot miss it.
If you are travelling via PickMe, ask the tuk driver to drop you inside the exhibition hall behind Lakehouse.
The book sale is open from 9:00 am, 5th October to 11:59 pm, 15th of October, 24 hours a day, 255 hours non stop.
Inside the Big Bad Wolf
It’s very organised. There are different aisles neatly arranged ranging from genres such as comics, romance, YA or young adult, fiction, non-fiction, architecture, interior design, music, biographies, self-help and kids books. Kids books were practically everywhere. I believe fiction was lacking in terms of quality. There were different books by Lee Child, Terry Pratchett, Anthony Horowitz but not too many by Stephen King, Dean Koontz or by sci-fi authors like Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov etc. Perhaps, BBW might replenish them in days to come. I sincerely hope so because the only titles by Stephen King were Danse Macabre, Revival, Doctor Sleep, The Green Mile, Finders Keepers, The Stand and The Dark Tower. The latter two were an omnibus of graphic novels costing Rs. 11,000 each.
You can also find a lot of pop-culture and YouTube authors in the self-help section. I found Peanuts, Sarah’s Scribbles, Garfield and PewDiePie’s books neatly stacked in the section. I think everyone can use some nuggets of wisdom from Snoopy and friends. There’s also large volumes of Garfield newspaper comics, comics from the New York Times etc in the same section.
Comic book wise, the trinity of comic publishing were present i.e. DC Comics, Marvel and Dark Horse. There weren’t any single digests but most comic books were present as encyclopaedias, omnibus, collected editions of story arcs such as Civil War. There were also volumes of Archie Comics such as ‘The Death of Archie’ and of course, Star Wars and Star Trek. Highly recommend checking out the Kids Section for colouring books of Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek sticker books and pop out books.
BBW also has a strange fixation with prices. Most books start over Rs. 630, Rs. 790 and above. But Rs. 630 was a common price on most adult books. See below. Nothing wrong but the discounts were great. Much cheaper than bookdepository sans the long delivery time.
I think the biggest bargain are the comic and graphic novel omnibuses which range from Rs. 2500 ($ 16 approx) to Rs. 11,000 ($70 approx). Highly recommend Stephen King’s The Dark Tower omnibus which is selling for Rs. 11,000.
Improvements for the next instalment of Big Bad Wolf
1. Better genre displays:
Comic book volumes were all over the place. I really wish there was a dedicated space for comics and Japanese anime
2. BBW Membership:
Whether you sign up to be a BBW member earlier or at the venue using the QR Code, you might run into issues at the cash counter. I hope BBW fixes this soon
3. Informed Volunteers:
The volunteers are doing a great job keeping the book sale neat, organised and tidy. I also noticed Malay supervisors keeping a close check. But I really wish the local volunteers knew where certain authors or relevant sections were. Might help to a certain extent in the future when there’s a bigger crowd.
Bitten by the Big Bad Wolf
As cheesy as this may sound, wolves mate for life as per those paranormal romance stories and I am hooked. I would definitely try and make it after midnight and check out for new stock in the future.
Here’s my book haul.
Comment below with your book haul or leave a clap :)
