Hunting Books in Bali Part I

In Indonesia, book is a luxury. For the price of one new paper-back (either in English or Indonesian) you can feed the whole family of eight with each person getting a portion of nasi goreng and ice tea. Beggars can’t be choosers, and so this sapimalas who consider books as a neccesity (apart from air, coffee and 8 hours sleep) always try to find a way to get her hand on books. The cheaper, the better (call me cheap shit and I couldn’t care less).

In a lot of cases, my book libido don’t get along with my situation. There are always bills to pay and more important needs to be fullfilled (“Eat that books if you are hungry then!” -direct quotation from my mother). I have the buying ability but comes from a family with zero desire to read, my book lust is more or less, uncorroborated.

Local bookseller like Gramedia or Periplus are selling good books but the titles they are selling are hardly intriguing as well as dictated by Oprah or The New York Times Bestseller List. Back in my Jakarta Period, you can always found me wide eyed and drooling all over Aksara or QB Bookstore (which has many interesting titles, unwrapped by plastics and comfy armchairs). I would swipe my card and sacrificed my lunches or Caramel Frappucino Affoggato Style weekly dosage in a heartbeat, with an exchange for a Marquez.

Nevertheless, living in Bali giving me quite an advantage. The next time you are here and visiting beaches around Bali, please pay attention to the tanning tourists (no, not to the chest area) and most likely you’d find them doing one thing: reading. Before they left Bali with most likely over-weight luggage, they’d left their books lying in the room or pool. That is where the exchange bookshop business flourished in Bali.

Meet my favorite bookshop in Kuta: Kerta Bookshop. This small establishment, sandwiched between 24-hours convenient store, ethnic percussion shop and gift shop, has been there since 1975. If you may take a peek to the 50% off section, you’d find history between pages of crumpled old bookswhich perhaps was brought by a hippie back in Flower Power 70's. The books are as varied as the tourists who come to visit Bali. There are summer read (chick-lits and Dan Brown-ish books) but there are also, surprisingly, Cervantes or Tolstoy.

I’ve been a devoted customer for over five years but everytime I come to the bookshop, I was always pleasantly surprised by the treasures I found. Like today, for instance, my recent treasure acquisition:

I don’t think I can find Isabel Allende’s memoir, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s and Sophie Dahl’s new book in the local big bookstore. The prices are sensible, between 45,000 to 150,000 IDR. Bring your already read books and exchange them for a new one. Kerta Bookshop also has a lot of interesting titles in Japanese, Dutch, German, Swedish, Russian, French and travel guide books (left, perhaps by a desperate backpacker). The funny thing is: the books availability depends on tourist season. Just when I came this afternoon, there were many new titles in Russian. Obviously from the “Russian Tourist Boom” in Bali.

I’ve always been fond of supporting local business and this bookshop is really a piece of history. So, stop by and patiently browse the collection. You’d be surprised.

Kerta Bookshop
Jalan Pantai Kuta - Bali
Phone (0361) 758047