SquarkBlog

I have always been a big fan of Borders. I remember the day I first visited the Borders outlet in Wheelock Place, Singapore many years ago. I spent a good two hours just on the History section alone. The other two hours I spent in the Magazine Section and the Business section. I was also pleasantly surprised to find Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and other RPG rules there. I remember seeing Vampire and Werewolf role=playing games (RPGs) by White Wolf as well as Wargames Illustrated magazine. But that was Singapore. There wasn't a Borders here in Malaysia at that time.

When KLCC first opened, I was hoping to see the first Borders in Malaysia there, but to no avail. I did suggest to the KLCC management to seek out my fav bookshop, but who was I? Anyway, some years passed and when Berjaya Times Square opened its doors in 2005, I was very happy to find out that a two-floor mega huge Borders was there. I visited it on the first week it opened, went straight to the History and Military Sections and was pleasantly surprised to see Osprey's Men-At-Arms series as well as their Campaign and other series there. They also had military books decent enough to excite a wargamer. I instantly added to my Campaign collection, especially the Napoleonic books. Love them.

A few years passed and many more Borders outlets opened in Malaysia. I visited all these outlets often. In 2008 and 2009. I expanded my Cthulhu Mythos books, thanks to Borders. I already owned all of HP Lovecraft's stories in various collections. What's missing were the stories he co-authored with August Derleth as well as stories by other authors inspired by Lovecraft. I found most of them in Borders recently: Shadows Over Baker Street, (tales of Sherlock Holmes in the nightmare world of H.P. Lovecraft!) was a great find at Borders Berjaya Times Square and Cthulhu 2000 was found at Borders The Curve. I had great fun finding these gems without having to resort to Amazon.com. Furthermore, the Borders experience, for me, is now much better since Starbucks Coffee is in most stores. There is nothing like reading books and magazines from the shelf while sipping great coffee.

In between my looking for Cthulhu Mythos books and military books, Squark Games was also busy expanding the range of games we were importing and distributing in Malaysia. In the midst of doing so, we had a confirmation that we could supply games to Borders. Yay! Seeing games that I really play in a bookstore will be a satisfying experience for me. Starting tomorrow 24th July 2009 there will be a range of games to Borders at Berjaya Times Square in Kuala Lumpur and Borders at The Curve in Petaling Jaya. From August 8th, Borders at Queensbay Mall in Penang will be stocking our games. Pretty exciting - as now not only RPGs will be represented in Borders, but our board games, card games and Monsterpocalypse as well! Throw in Borders' wide range of Manga, science-fiction, horror and fantasy books and you get a gamers' paradise. Check out Borders' new logo at the top: Your Place For Knowledge and Entertainment - indeed!

Oh, BTW, not only will our games be sold there, we are also organizing games activities during weekends in Borders Berjaya at Times Square and Borders at The Curve starting in August 2009. Watch this space for announcements of games activities.