I was looking for some classic books such as Narnia, InkHeart, etc. I already went to many mega bookstores and to my amazement, I found what I was looking for nowhere but PageOne.

A serious looking, huge bookstore with a green logo is all i could remember of Pageone. The interior decoration was nothing less then interesting. I love the center elevated portion best.. The elevated areas with book shelves crooked and slanted is like a replication of a study room in the pirates bunk on board a huge ship seeking a treasure. Beautiful, intrinsic details of the shelves and slanted floor makes it so much a fantasy to me.

While browsing through the collection of books, I realised this one thing..... unlike some book stores... The titles are a plenty however, there are only one or two copies, which makes a huge variety of titles for you to choose from in one shelf. While in some bookstores... They have many books and have them in many repeated copies in which you will have a whole shelf full of similar titles. Not much a Selection.

I was actually looking for some intrinsic designed novels such as ancient logo embossed hard cover with brown paper in gold tinted edges for my collection. I found the title i wanted and some other bonus catch as well....

I find that for a book shop, the amount of selection is most important, however, what is important is the ambience and space. In PageOne, you can take your time to browse through the books and there are soothing jazz music playing in the background. If you find something you like and want to read a little of it before deciding to purchase, there are some sits hidden near the glass windows for you to browse through. Though Limited, these sits offers a great sea view which makes the entire "searching for a book" process much more enjoyable.

If you like chinese books, be it novels or general references, there is a good selection of multiple titles at the back of the book store.

This is a pretty serious book store.... Straight to the point, comprehensive and you might find some gems here... Reasonably priced and great services......

A must go for BookWorms......

The only few mega book stores that you can sit there all day reading-without-buying and still not kena chased out by shop.

I had to find books on Rock, Metal, Death, Black Magic, Satanism, Lucifer, whatnots, and this place has it all. Fictional, or resources style.

There's even seats for you to sit around and be frozen to death (no thanks to their freezing air-con).

I actually find their staff a little snobbish, not helpful, and their favourite reply to you when you ask for their assistants are "There only, you look for it again lor."

I think that should be their company culture.

Stationery is of course more pricey than Popular bookstores, but they carry more variety and designs, especially from Japan.

I like their variety, but spare me your SNOOB.

Page One @ Vivo doesn't have any special theme. I'm not quite sure whether if it's an upscale book store like Kinokuniya or Borders, it wasn't really close to any.

The first thing I observed from the entrance was the small walkways leading into the store. Perhaps more space should be allocated there, since the entrance is the place with the highest human traffic. Imagine that you haven't even start your search for the books, you have to squeeze through the shelves and people clogged at the entrance.

The other thing I observed, they allocated a small area with seats for talk-shows. In fact, when we were there there was indeed a talk-show going on. It is propped right at the side of the entrance and I guess that is a sign that there will be regular talk-shows on book reviews etc. Isn't it great?

The decor of the place wasn't anything fantastic I guess. The usual huge bookshelves where every book is lined up side by side. One thing though, I didn't really see any displays of special featured publication. Maybe there are, but they are not eye-catching at all.

Usually at a bookstore, I would only gun for two topics. Religious and Marketing/PR books. I was surprised that alot of popular titles and publications are not available here. I did a very quick scan around these two topics, I didn't really see much publications from famous marketing writers like Philip Kotler or once popular Naked Marketing. Religiously, I scouted for one of the top selling book titled The Decline & Fall of Church of Rome... again to no avail.

The staffs were helpful and polite though. When I couldn't find the religious section, I was answered in a way I have never experienced in famous bookstores. "Sir, can you follow me please? I will lead you there," he answered with a smile. Some bookstores employees I encountered probably gonna point in a general direction and tell me it's there.

My verdict? An average bookstore, if you look hard enough you might find some gems in there. However, I wished their topics can be arranged in a better way. What I didn't like for sure is the layout of the shelves, which makes crossing over to another shelf "complicated". I was almost trying to play "maze" in some part of the store.