Imported books widely available in town

Imported books widely available in town

T. Sima Gunawan, Contributor, Jakarta

Every day new shops open in Jakarta selling all kinds of
goods, from shoes and clothes to televisions and cell phones. And
also books.

Well, there are not many bookstores compared to, say, clothes
stores or jewelry stores, but at least there are a few offering a
great variety of good books.

It is easy to find New York Times best-sellers like Dan
Brown's Da Vinci Code (which has spent 118 weeks on the list) and
Angels and Demons, John Grisham's The Last Juror and My Life by
Bill Clinton; books for children and teenagers like Superman and
Lizzy McGuire, or chick-lit like Sophie Kinsella's Undomestic
Goddess and Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada.

"It's really great. You can browse through the books and read
them comfortably while having a cup of coffee," Feiny Sentosa, a
resident of Kemang, South Jakarta, said during a recent visit to
the nearby Aksara bookstore, which also has a cafe.

The mother of one is new to town, moving back after spending
more than 10 years in New Zealand and Laos.

Ten years ago, it was hard to find imported books here. The
two national bookstore chains, Gramedia and Gunung Agung, have
existed for decades and have lots of books on offer, but they are
mainly locally published. People used to have to go to Singapore
to buy English books or order them at Amazon.com.

Now Jakarta has three huge bookstores with a wide selection of
imported books and magazines: QB World Books, Aksara Prodak and
Kinokuniya. English-language books are also available at
Periplus, Times, Paperbag and Limma Bookshop. If you cannot find
a certain title, you can place an order with most bookstores and
expect your book to be delivered within between two to five
weeks.

You can also order books that have not yet been published,
like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book
number six in the series), which will be available around the
world on July 16.

QB opened its first bookstore at Plaza Senayan, South Jakarta,
in June 1999 and a few months later the second store opened on
Jl. Sunda, near Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta. The third opened in
2001 on Jl. Iskandar Muda, Pondok Indah, South Jakarta, and
within the past four years three more bookstores opened in Kemang
(2002), Plaza Semanggi (2004) and Bandung (2005).

There are three Aksara bookstores: in Kemang, Cilandak Town
Square and Plaza Indonesia, which opened in 2000, 2002 and 2004,
respectively.

"We opened the bookstore to meet the huge demand (for imported
books)," said Vivian Idris, the marketing manager of Aksara,
adding that 90 percent of its collection was English titles.

Aksara serves both Indonesians and expatriates of all ages.
The best sellers in Kemang are mostly books on architecture and
children's books. At the Plaza Indonesia store there is a strong
demand for fiction, restaurant books and books on health and
business, while the top sellers at Cilandak Town Square are
fiction and children's books.

Both Aksara and QB offer membership programs for customers.
Members receive invitations for special events at the bookstores
such as book launches, book discussions and exhibitions, as well
as information on new arrivals. To attract more visitors, they
also offer special discounts for both members and non-members.

Another great bookstore in Jakarta is Kinokuniya. It opened
its first store in the early 1990s in a small corner of Sogo in
Plaza Indonesia. Just last year the international chain took over
almost the entire fifth floor of Sogo at Plaza Senayan. This year
it plans to open a third store at Pondok Indah Mall II, which is
still under construction. Besides English books, Kinokuniya also
has many Japanese books and some rare books, including The
Cartier Collection: Jewelry, which costs Rp 4,785,000. Most of
the books at Kinokuniya are neatly wrapped in plastic, so you
might need to ask for assistance if you want to have a read.

The Limma Bookshop & Library on Jl. Bangka in South Jakarta
has an online service that allows you to buy or rent books
without leaving home. Times Bookstore is located in Pondok Indah
Mall. It used to have a branch in Plaza Indonesia, but that site
is now occupied by Periplus. Periplus Bookshops can also be found
in Kemang as well as in the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Aryaduta Hotel
and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Outside Jakarta, there
are Periplus branches in Bandung, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Surabaya
and Bali.

There is also a small bookstore called Paperbag on Jl.
Aditiawarman, which offers limited stocks of children's books and
fiction, both new and used books. It also buys used books. For
example, a used book titled The Best Laid Plans by Sidney Sheldon
costs Rp 56,000, while the buy-back price is Rp 14,000. Anne
Rice's Taltos is Rp 54,000 and the buy-back price is Rp 2,000.
Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is Rp 75,000 with a buy-back price of
Rp 33,000.

A new copy of Da Vinci Code is available for Rp 85,000 or Rp
92,000, depending on the bookstore, while in the U.S. the book
costs US$7.99 (about Rp 77,500). It is more expensive here
because the supplier has to pay shipping, import tax and other
expenses.