The Exclusive Books Warehouse Sale [Photo Blog]

This week, no Short Fiction Piece. I was actually going to post an Essay I wrote on some of my experiences as a Commerce Student but that can wait for a bit. For now, it's Photo Blog time. Those who remember my old photo album days will not be surprised :P

-Imran

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Cape Town: South Africa: The Exclusive Books sale! Let me sum it up for you if you aren't yet familiar: a warehouse full of books that's constantly restocked: R50 per kilogram of books for any book. Let me repeat that: R50/kg for any book. Books don't weigh all that much to begin with so thick volumes go for R40 and lower. But lightweight books pretty much selling for nothing. So if you're even remotely interested in reading, I suggest you check out the details here. (There's one in Johannesburg too)

The sale started on the 9th of August and runs every day until the 1st of September. Until then, all the books that Exclusive Books wants to get rid of just keeps piling in. This is the first year that I've known about the sale and so far I've been twice. It's a ridiculously long drive, since the warehouse is all the way out in Parow but it's turned to be incredibly worth it for a book fanatic like me. I'm actually considering going again seeing as they keep re-stocking. Here are a few photos of my experience at the Book Sale... with captions of course.

The first time I went to the sale on the day after it opened. I snapped this one photo and then ran off and got lost in the world of under-priced books...

Got two boxes full of books on my first run through. Taking into account the 5% I got off from my Fanatics card, I think it worked out to around R12 a book. Not bad when you consider most of these are in the R100 to R200 price range. Coming up are a few of my good picks:

Got these for my young cousin. Trying to encourage him to read atm. The DBZ book is for tracing.

Got myself a Hello Kitty ABC book because I still need to learn the alphabet. I can't remember what comes after J.

These two I was quite excited about. I was actually eyeing The Communist Manifesto the other day but opted for something else instead. The retail was R84; I paid under R10. And then I was also over the moon to find one of Yann Martel's books. I'm reading it at the moment.

Hordes of Vintage Classics. If you buy books, you know these are expensive; they usually go for between R140 and R200 depending on the size. Not so this time, dirt cheap all of them. Too much Dickens though. Maybe people don't buy Dickens anymore.

I enjoyed Kite Runner quite a lot even though it was depressing as hell. This is the graphic novel. I'm not even sure if I want to read it but at these prices it was hard to say no. 

J.K. Rowling's new book. This one came out only last year. You can get some pretty new stuff at this Warehouse sale. My brother picked up Nasim Taleb's Antifragile and Terry Goodkind's The Omen Machine yesterday.

These are probably useless to me but here's the thing. They usually retail at R110 each. R220 for both. I got them both for R9 because together they weighed only 200 grams!

Second time I went, I found I, Robot. Been looking for this one for a while but even at the sales it was R80 or so. Faulkner's Sound and the Fury too. Go to the Waterfront, this book sells for R140+. Got both For R10 each.

The problem of books being so damn cheap is that you're tempted to buy books you already have, but in nicer covers. This edition of Wuthering Heights is an awesome looking hardcover but it costed less than the crappy Collins Classic edition I bought and read a while back. As for Fooled by Randomness, I already own a pretty nice copy. Trying to figure out why I bought this one... maybe it was the R10 price tag.

My friend took this box set of 18 Kiddies books + a soft toy.
Usual retail price: R600. Discount Price: R300. She paid: R75!!!

A book by Steinbeck and one of those Penguin Epics that I've just been picking up for low prices. The Epic goes for R30 and the Red Pony goes for R150 (click here). At 65 grams each, I paid R3,25. This feels like stealing. Parking is more expensive!!!

And that's it from me with this Photo Blog. Happy hunting to anyone who goes to the sale. I'm still busy sorting through the 50+ books I bought. I think after paying such low prices, it's going to be hard for me to buy full price off the shelves without a really good reason; guess I'll wait for the next Warehouse Sale. Now to start reading it all.

See you next week