Which is About Books, Books, and Books.

Carrying on from my last post, but in a much more succinct fashion ...

I finally got my own personal copy of Howl's Moving Castle. With a proper cover with a proper Calcifer. These things are important to me.

I was a little nervous about what "Acceptable" condition would end up being, as I once had a "Very Good" textbook that was full of writing, had torn and bent pages, and was decorated on the front with a smallish "The Onion" sticker.

Fortunately, libraries have rather better standards, and this was a former library book. It's really quite lovely for a used, 1986 children's book.

As it turns out, I'm sort of glad it is an ex-library book, because it's a pretty cool library book. Since I work at a library, I naturally have purchased or acquired a fair amount of withdrawn books, most with the library labels still on. It's kind of cool to have my own little "library" shelf, call numbers and all. What's even cooler than books from my local library, though, is a book from the Onondaga Nation School library, with a card still in it from just a year after I was born.

I hope Kim and Paul enjoyed it as much as I have.

I also see that the Onondaga Nation School Library catalogued it as Young Adult, just like my library did. It came off to me as more of a J book, but I suppose there were parts (decapitation and drunkenness and the like) best suited to the older crowd.

It appears my library finally located the copy of Castle in the Air it was looking for, so I'll finally be able to read it. I got as far as checking out the audiobook, but ... I simply cannot have fiction read to me. Takes me out of it.

Speaking of libraries, I'm working on a Dewey-Decimal related drawing. It's about as interesting as it sounds, but it'll still be fun if I actually get around to finishing it. 

With all of this recent being-a-library-geek that's come over me, I also decided to revive my languishing Squidoo account and make a library lens. Part of it required digging through the Internet for library-themed webcomics -- I found a few I didn't know existed, and will now have to read through in my spare time. This means, of course, that I will write blogs and make sandwiches in my spare time and read the aforementioned webcomics on workdays when I have ten minutes to get ready to leave.

Oh well, I guess everything gets done eventually. Which reminds me, I really need to clean the gecko cage. I've been watching Dexter and admiring my new book and buying obscene amounts of groceries all day. Ta-ta. 

Stalked by penguins...

I'm taking advantage of winter break and bringing home as many pretty books as I can from my wanderings through the library. Nothing non-fiction, nothing informative, just strange books and silly books and fun books and books with nice pictures. I think of it as a service to the library, freeing up some shelf space. This week, that's left me with:

The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide (Douglas Adams, obviously)

The individual volumes were all checked out, but here they are in one place! Plus it's one of those big hardcovers that stays open on a page.

The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes (Neil Gaiman)

The Sandman: The Doll's House (same as above)

Love Mirrormask, never read these. Working through the second volume right now, having trouble not thinking "Rose Tyler" every time our young blonde Rose is mentioned.

The Black Book of Colors (Menena Cottin, Rosana Faria)

The picture books are in great big bins, so you just flip through till something catches your eye. The title of this one was curious; you open it up and the pages are all indeed black save a single line of white text on the left. The rest is for another sense; the words are repeated in braille, and the facing page has raised images representing the color (grass for green, strawberries for red, leaves for brown). Very fun.

A Mama for Owen (Marion Dane Bauer, John Butler)

The tortoise and the hippo. I know the story, though I haven't gotten around to the book yet - the cover illustration is just lovely, very soft and understated.

So, that should tide me over till Wednesday. If not, I've got Clash of the Titans to entertain me.

Oh, and my jewelry finally arrived! Little mix-up in the mail, resulting in the delivery of two (non-sonic) screwdrivers I didn't exactly order, but now it's here and so shiny:

Chose Engineering because, obviously, it matches my shirt.

Toodles.