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Borneo Books - Borneo's Best Bookshop?
A
suitable place to hang out - for travelers like you!
Imagine
this situation:
You came to
Sabah with your family - your wife, your son and your daughter -
planned to climb Mount
Kinabalu for your family adventure
vacation. You arrive
in
Kota
Kinabalu city a few
days earlier (because you want to get use to the place, the weather
and
the food
around) and stay in a nice travelers/backpackers
lodge in the center of Kota
Kinabalu city.
You also run a
website and travelogues about your family adventure travel and need to
update it with your
notebook that you bring with you anywhere around the world. Your
son have a blogsite
- a personalize web page for him to tell
everybody around the Internet - almost anything about your family
adventure journey.
Your wife have
a different interest
- local people handicraft - anywhere around the world where
she
travel. And lastly, your daughter really love to read -
just about anything especially books
about the place where she travel.
You
are
wondering: Is there a
suitable place for us
to hang out together before we climb
Mount
Kinabalu? A place
like a 'one stop center' for all our needs? Well, do not worry. There
is a place
very suitable for you and your family, or even for a solo traveler - Borneo Books 2
- a kind of modern bookstore that could fulfill all the
above needs.
Borneo Books 2,
is situated in Wisma
Merdeka, a shopping mall in the heart of Kota Kinabalu city. It is just
a walking distance away from most of the travelers and
backpackers
lodge around town. One of the
most surprising aspects or
Borneo Books 2 (once you have found it tucked away in a corner past a
Korean snack bar on the second floor of the first phase of Wisma
Merdeka) is how spacious and light is.
The
bookstore
have "home
in the city
concept", offering much more
than a wide selection of specialist book.
Visitors like you and your family members can:
- Recharge
your notebook or mobile phone and
enjoy free broadband Internet access, so that you can read your email,
upload your family adventure photo, update
your travelogues and your son's
blog (access priority will be given to their book buyers, seekers of
environmental information and Borneo Books members),
- Store
your
luggage (small backpack) and your
notebook securely in a locker while doing some shopping for a
nice handicraft in Borneo Craft shop or elsewhere
in the
mall,
- Browse
through the art display featuring works
by local painters and photographers,
- Read the
bulletin board that has copies of
newsworthy articles or various brochures on places of interest in Sabah,
- If you
have foot sore after walking around Kota
Kinabalu, they offer an oasis of relaxation and interest with
comfortable seating,
- Maybe buy
any book about Borneo for your
daughter, who is very interested on knowing about the place and the
people,
- Or, just
hang around in a cozy corner of the
bookstore having nice free coffee or tea as you relax with
your
family .
As you enter you
are silently
greeted by a very tall, somewhat enigmatic stone carving of a head. To
your right are several ranks of bookshelves, the walls hung with
paintings or photos, while to the left is a comfortable seating area
with a coffee table and free coffee or tea available as you relax and
browse through a range of interesting magazines, scientific papers,
tourism literature and so forth. The large windows look across Jalan
Tun
Razak towards the lush green of Signal Hill, making it very easy to
linger here much longer than you intended.
A quick glance at
the shelves of
Borneo Books 2 will probably leave you amazed that there have been so
many books published on aspects of Borneo
(as well as other parts of
Malaysia and Asia). Among the many topics are natural history,
architecture, culture, cuisine, gardening, history and exploration. You
can find a magnificent book on the history of Malaysia as seen through
around a century of photographs or buy a specialized book on orchids,
check out a guide book for your next holiday or choose a beautifully
illustrated children's book. Want to learn about the history and
cultural significance of Borneo beads, read about sustainable forest
management or decide upon a gorgeously photographed Southeast Asian
cookbook? They're all there - and more - at Borneo Books 2.
If you're in the
mood for fiction,
you'll find quality literature including the latest novels, biographies
and English classics. But that is not all; you can choose from an
increasingly diverse selection of second-hand books. This service is
already a hit with visitors to Sabah, who can trade in their books for
new reading material. It also offers residents the chance to buy
second-hand book for a modest sum, then receive a partial refund when
they return it and take out another selection of books. The
second-hand books at Borneo Books 2 include some rare old books and
collectors' pieces too - perhaps a first for Sabah and Sarawak.
But why the two
in Borneo Books 2?
The first Borneo Books was started in 1999 by Ms Rosalind Tsang, who
also runs a craft shop on the ground floor of Wisma Merdeka. The
collection at the first Borneo Books kept expanding and when the need
for larger premises became inevitable, the idea of offering more than
just a regular book shop was put forward by British consultant, Dr
Stephen Sutton. Thus Ms Tsang's Borneo Books 2 was born, and reflects
Dr Sutton's passion for all things Bornean, particularly environment.
This is not surprising since Dr Sutton was involved with the Royal
Society's research projects in the Danum
Valley Conservation Area from
1998 until 2000.
Be sure
to check it out
while you are in
Kota Kinabalu!
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