WebClick Tracer

TYBOX: Saying goodbye to BookSale on a new year

tybox tyrone velez mindaviews column columns

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 07 January) – It’s tough when you start a new year with a goodbye.

But that is what BookSale, the popular chain of secondhand books, is doing, as it announced that its SM City Davao branch will be closing and clearing out its books until January 15.

With a week left, it’s time for booklovers in Davao, and from nearby cities, to make one last trip to this place and keep one last memory of scouring through books, for minutes or an hour, to make a good find.

With BookSale’s SM branch going out, that leaves one last branch of BookSale in Gaisano CityGate in Buhangin.  That may also be closing soon.

BookSale previously closed its two branches in the past years. Its Abreeza Mall branch shut down during the pandemic, and SM Lanang closed down recently.  There was a branch in the burned down NCCC Mall that was gone in 2017.

Poor sales, and high rental fees for spaces in shopping malls, pushed for the closure of this popular book store.

Plus the rise of online book selling, and inflation have kept people busy and drift out from checking what’s new on BookSale.

Even for me, going to BookSale in the past few months was kind of sad, like the way one looks at clothes or items you like but you need to spend on food for the table.

Another reason is that they stopped selling magazines. No more Rolling Stone, National Geographic or some interesting stuff in photography, music, movies, solutions to climate change, independent journalism.

New books hardly arrived for weeks.

Then in December, our last trip as a family to BookSale, as we bought some children’s books, we asked the clerk how things were holding up. Her reply was like a Blue Christmas story.

Murag mag sarado na mi sa January. Mahal naman gyud kaayo ang renta.

Her next sentences flowed like sad news. Other branches might be closing.  The only branches in Mindanao, in Davao and Cagayan de Oro, might all shut down.  Even in Visayas. The shop will go online.

This was a worst-kept secret for me through the holidays. I was hoping there would be a change of heart by 2025. But that announcement four days into the new year, sealed the decision.

***

It’s hard now for booklovers like us to see this void that may not be filled up soon.

There’ one less reason to go to malls, without that trip to a bookstore.

Going to Fully Booked is a cringe to see expensive books that you can’t even scan because it’s wrapped.  National Bookstore looks more like a school & office supply store now as it pulled out a lot of books and magazines. Big Bad Wolf comes roaming to the cities once a year.

Is reading a lost thing among us? We get to think of that as one can hardly find bookstores thriving even in cities.

Is it because of the economy? Aside from what I wrote above, is it the tough business of publishing books that does not yield returns in currencies, that only the dreamers and thinkers will venture into this?

Or is it our quality of education? When reading and reading comprehension is at its low, and when a former education secretary thought it better to tear down teaching aids and posters on walls to leave a learning room blank and uncreative.

There are many reasons why it will take time to dissect and write down. The sad anatomy of creativity, imagination and learning taken away with the absence of bookstores.

***

For now, we will cling on to memories. Like that scene from You Got Mail when Meg Ryan closes her Shop Around the Corner, we will see memories play of our trips to BookSale.

Memories of getting introduced to poetry from Adam Zajewksi, Octavio Paz, (and) Tomas Transtromer, wonderful poets. 

Memories of finding children’s books that I grew up with and now passed on to my child, like Peanuts and Sesame Street. Children’s books are incredible from the store, from classics like Winnie the Pooh and Beatrix Potter, to zany ones from Quentin Blake to Julia Donaldson.

My favorite memories in BookSale include finding that Rolling Stone tribute for David Bowie on the year he died, which I almost missed as it was on the wall, but there it was, Bowie’s eyes looking at mine. Then there are those fantastic story books with illustrations about Walt Whitman, indigenous peoples and history of jazz music.

There are also memories of bumping into college schoolmates thrice, which turns to a brief kumustahan.

Then, there’s this frequent BookSale shopper like me, a balding senior guy who is always bubbly and talks out loud when he sees books he likes.  I’m gonna miss him.

One wonders if we can experience these thrills again. Who knows, perhaps the next chapter, a new book place, will open again.

For now, it’s a happy-sad goodbye for memories and words.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Tyrone A. Velez is a freelance journalist and writer.)

Search MindaNews

Share this MindaNews story
Send us Feedback