SUBANG JAYA: A child’s laughter breaks the silence. A few shelves away, someone has just stumbled upon a long-forgotten title and cannot contain their excitement.
“Oh, so cheap!” they declare. “Oh my God, this book is here!” another exclaims.
Nearby, a young boy sits cross-legged on the floor, oblivious to the world around him as he flips through a stack of books. It is his first visit – but, judging by the growing pile beside him, it may not be his last.
“These little moments are very rewarding and are what really keeps us going,” said Bookaholics Hub founder Carol Low.
“Another thing we enjoy is when we see little children come in, and they’re being introduced to books for the first time and suddenly they get hooked.”
For the former banker, such scenes are worth more than any sales figure. They are proof that books can still compete for attention in a world dominated by screens.
This belief lies at this self-service second-hand bookstore at Aeon Big Subang Jaya.
Home to nearly 20,000 books, most of them priced between RM5 and RM15, Bookaholics Hub attracts a diverse crowd, from young families and students to retirees hunting for hard-to-find titles.
The concept is simple: choose your books, pay at the self-checkout counter, and you’re done. There’s also a drop-off point for preloved books.
The strong response has led Low to plan a second outlet. But for this mother of two, the bookstore is about more than selling books – it is about creating readers.
“Reading is something that nurtures the mind,” she said. “It can heal you if you pick the correct books.”
Low believes reading offers something increasingly rare in modern life: the opportunity to slow down, reflect, and engage the imagination.
“When you read, your mind is actively imagining scenes that you’re reading. Your mind can run wild,” she added.
This conviction was shaped by a lifelong love of reading. Growing up in Kuala Lumpur, Low devoured everything from Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes, before spending her university years in the UK scouring thrift shops for second-hand books.
“It was always a dream to own a bookshop,” she said. “The dream never died.”
It resurfaced during the pandemic. Concerned by the amount of time children were spending on screens, Low set up a small street library outside her home in Shah Alam.
Every morning, neighbourhood children would cycle over to borrow books and return days later for new ones. “You’d see kids in their pyjamas cycle from their road, come to my place, take books and happily go back,” she recalled.
This community effort eventually evolved into Bookaholics, first as an online rental service, then an online second-hand bookstore with just 150 titles, before finally becoming a physical shop.
Along the way, Low developed another mission: rescuing books from being destroyed.
“People actually throw many books out to be recycles. The books are torn and thrown out. It’s painful to see,” she said.
Many of the books lining the store’s shelves have been saved from that fate. Some come from individuals clearing out their collections, while others arrive in container loads from Singapore.
Among the rarest finds are out-of-print Lat comic books that can fetch hundreds of ringgit.
Despite the store’s success, Low believes the biggest challenge lies not in sourcing books but finding more readers.
“I don’t think there are enough readers. We’re always looking for ways to make reading exciting and encourage kids to read,” she shared.
Some customers, she added, find the already discounted prices“expensive”.
Still, this has not dampened her optimism; even the occasional book theft in her store is viewed through a different lens. “You lose a book but you build a reader,” she said.
This philosophy is reflected in the scenes that unfold daily between the shelves: delighted customers discovering hidden treasures, parents introducing children to their first books, and young readers sitting on the floor, completely absorbed in a story.
Find out more about Bookaholics Hub here. Follow Bookaholics Hub on Instagram.
Bookaholics Hub
Lot 2.16, 2nd Floor,
Aeon Big, Jalan Kemajuan Subang, SS16,
47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor
For location, click here.
Opening hours: 9am-10pm daily
