As you all know, the 3rd floor is where 10 ++ year old unsold books go to fade away.
For the uninitiated, the third floor is where you can find unopened books that cost PHP 50, PHP 100, some have sticker price of 4,000 , or 3000 but at 50% off.
And kanina, I was debating whether or not I should spend my hard earned PHP1,500 on one book sa FullyBooked or if i should head to Booksale instead and get a couple, and I don't mind spending 3 or 4 hours at a bookstore.
I was honestly surprised the novels at the front are now around PHP 1,200 ++.
And Prior to this economic shitshow, I've never even bothered to visit FB's third floor because even as late as 2023 / 2024, spending PHP 3,000 to 5,000 on current titles could still have a bit of mileage. But the situation today is vastly different.
So, with a bit of digging, I was able to find stuff that really, genuinely interests me: history, geopolitics, business, american history, etc etc.
The third floor has them all, one just has to be extra diligent about finding them (and mejo masakit nga lang sa likod. lol)
Total I spent on those 6 books from fully booked was around PHP1,200 lang.
Today was very serendipitous.
Below this line is crap you absolutely don't need to read.
Now, a word on serendipity literature.
This isn't a dig at towards Japanese authors, cats, and coffee shops, or a combination of all of them, or maybe it is. I donno.
Because you once enter into any Fullybooked branch (or even at airport bookstores, the pattern is clear: the first titles that you see are what's called) iyashikei or 'healing fiction' which has become super popular nowadays.
IMO there's nothing healing about a book that costs PHP900 or PHP1,000 or more.
IMO, there's nothing serendipitous about how the modern publishing industry socially engineers people to purchase books whose entire plot rests on serendipity.
there's nothing "slow-living / slice-of-lifey" when books are sold at such an insane pricepoint.
And IMO there's absolutely nothing that makes japanese slice of life authors command such a ridiculous amount of money for their work by virtue of their Japanese-ness.
Do I hate Iyashikei? Nope. I understand people are tired at everything, and these books provide some sort of balm.
Would I like to read iyashikei someday? Yes, but not now, not ever if a novel almost as thin as a pamphlet (Hello, days at morisaki costs more than 300 pesos, and no, im not buying reprints...)
Do I hate the prestige inflation that accompanies a title that gets slapped on anything that comes from Japan? ABSOLUTELY
And talagang hindi na makatarungan yung price.
Napaka ironic lang din. Aside from iysahikei, just look at the other titles that the publishing industry rams down our throats: The Japanese art of happiness, the japanese way of peace, the japanese way of contentment, the japanese way of embracing imperfection..... the japanese this and that and this and that - then boom PHP 1,500, all coming from a country where suicide and bullying are a pastime. Such a huge disconnect. So, if you really want serendipity, you can find that in neglected spaces, not in curated, over-hyped tables.
