I fell in love immediately! I took these pictures on my second visit after I talked to the owner and he let me review his shop!
Heaven!!!! Walls of books!
One thing I start to notice with these second-hand bookshops is that they have such unique sections for their books. Like this Military section below.
As much as I love Scribes for its craziness and clutter, Galaxy Books really sets itself apart from its counterparts. The shop is super organized and clean. The books are in AMAZING condition. For the same price as the books in Scribes, you can get better quality books. And that's saying a lot because these second-hand books are cheap. I really give props to the owner for being so meticulous in choosing the books. To a certain extent, it is like his private library only that we get to buy his books.
I only discovered this on my second visit but this shop has a back room filled with antiques and more books! It looked really creepy at first but my goodness, imagine the treasures you might find!! And did I mention more books??!! So really when you decide to pop in for a visit, find a small door in between the shelves and go right in! It's like you're transported to a different world. I felt like I'm on set in one of those rustic scenes in Studio Ghibli movies.
Beautiful leather bound edition of famous Russian authors. I would kill to have these in my library!
This painting (?) is so haunting...that I couldn't stop staring at it.
This beautiful (I'm guessing first edition) hardback Vanity Fair is in amazing condition. It's only $7...that's around RM 17.50! O_O In Malaysia, this kind of edition would set you back at least RM80!
This is William Brosnan, owner of Galaxy Books. A really friendly guy and we chatted a bit every time I dropped by. He told me about his amazing travels when he was younger. He was born and raised in Dunedin but during his younger days, he went and travelled the world. He once stopped by Malaysia back in the 70s and lived there for a couple weeks before continuing his way to Europe. He did odd jobs in between his adventures and one time, he worked as a gravedigger. Just so he could get extra funds. How cool is that?! His stories were so foreign to me, especially coming from Malaysia--with a Malaysian mindset. It was so bizarre and eye-opening at the same time. This goes to show that there is never the RIGHT/NORMAL way of doing things. What's normal for me is to graduate, find a job and make lots of money. But to Will, it's to see the world and collect as many books as possible. Yeah, that's what he did. He started this shop with a collection of his books that he accumulated throughout his travels.
How amazing is that?
I still remember what he told me, "I'm like a fish out of water if I don't have books. Reading books is so natural to me."
Fact: Galaxy Books is turning thirty this year!
