The Vijitha Yapa in Crescat has a great selection of comics and no textbooks, which means they have room for actual novels and international magazines. The selection is excellent but expensive. We do recommend it for gifts.
The Books
Vijitha Yapa Crescat has a lot of readable books. This shouldn’t be notable for a bookshop, but in Sri Lanka a lot of booksellers are stocking more school textbooks than anything else. Fiction is often an afterthought, some dusty old Penguin classics.
VY has those, I saw the Science Fiction Stories Of Edgar Allen Poe (Rs. 2,445) among others, but they also have a great selection of coffee table books, comics, novels, international magazines, business books and the best selection of comics in the country. As you can tell from the Poe price, however, they’re all rather expensive.
A collected, hardbound Walking Dead set costs Rs. 5950. A regular Captain Marvel story (book, softbound, one arc) costs Rs. 2,100. A Jonah Hex set is a comparable deal at Rs. 2,350. These are the top titles – they have Sandman (had at least, I own it), Batman, Superman, etc.
I don’t know if you like comics, but we think they’re awesome. The new titles – Walking Dead, etc – are creatively compelling and quite cool, great gifts for young men, or women even. The only thing is how expensive they are. If you want to read the entire Walking Dead zombie apocalypse series it’d run you over Rs. 20,000.
They also have Naruto and some vaguely acceptable manga.
Beyond comics they have a lot of good fiction. Game Of Thrones are about Rs. 950 each. There’s a range but that’s one thing we recommend.
Another notable section is the international magazines. They have a lot of titles but, again, quite expensive. Vogue is Rs. 1,885. It’s next to the business section, which is also pretty well curated.
Service
The service is fine. They don’t follow you around and can answer questions.
Location
Crescat is the most upscale of malls and this is the most upscale of bookshops. It is, however, quite small. There’s a good selection but by no means a big one.
Conclusion
Vijitha Yapa Crescat has a great selection of comics and other interesting books, but it’s also quite expensive. Good for gifts.
