Indonesia Book Fair 2011

Its a great week in Jakarta if you are bookworms, read-o-philes or simply just want to grab books with discount. Indonesia Book Fair 2011 is happening again starting from last Sunday until today at Istora Senayan. What can i say about this fair ? three words, mind blowing discounts.

I come as a man with a mission in this fair, to check out the imported books. Read from twitter that not only local publisher but also foreign ones which took part in this year’s biggest book fair. Thats my catch right there, no way im gonna miss this event.

Pop economics books is my soft spot. Books like Freakonomics series, Gladwell’s paperback, Chris Andersons , Keith Ferrazzi’s and philosophical marketing from Seth Godin. I enjoy reading them untranslated to Bahasa Indonesia because of the obvious reasons, most of the translated one usually lack of context hence weird to read. Not all though, Keith Ferazzi’s Never Eat Alone published by Gagas Media is one good translated books example. Still, i prefer to read in English.

That great power of prefering to read in english comes with great responsibility, imported books is so damn expensive here in Kinokuniya, Times or even Gramedia. Not to be disgrateful, its actually quite the same compared to KL. Kinokuniya KLCC is like a willy wonka chocolate factory to me cause it apply the same rule :  Every single thing is appealing but you can only take one. The different : what stopping me to take lot of books is not oompa loompas but a maybank visa debit card which low on balance.

In the bookfair, Periplus and Aksara was my Santa Clauses. They throwing the discounts specifically on imported books like nobody business, dropped the price like its hot baby!. I bought What Mine is Yours by Rachel Botsman for, wait for it, 60 k IDR. Man, thats so cheap i started to feel like im ripping them off.  Aksara did the same, Linchpin by Seth Godin is 75 K only. Thats a no brainer for me. Those two publisher giving such a good deals i didnt even mind to swarm around look for another place.

All in all, i came back home with 5 books (3 hardcopy) for less than 300k IDR. Mission over-accomplished!.

If you guys looking forward to get cheap deals on imported books and spend the money for the greater good, dont miss another run of Drive Books Jakarta this December. What is drive books ? check links on previous sentence.

To read or not to read, Lads.