The Jane Austen action figure is finally mine. I’ve been ogling her in the window of the library bookstore for the last three weeks, and now she has taken her place on my bookshelf with Bobblehead Chaucer, the two Wild Things, and the Nancy Pearl and Shakespeare action figures. There was a Poe at the bookstore too and I was tempted but not tempted enough. I wasn’t quite sure how well he would get a long with everyone else. Jane has a rather pained and distracted look on her face and the book in her hand, Pride and Prejudice, doesn’t like to stay in her hand and falls out at the slightest jiggle. But I am happy with her anyway. Oh and the back of the box made me laugh. Along with born, died, occupation, etc, is weapon of choice (this is an action figure after all). Her weapon? Character Study. Heh.

Speaking of the library, the volunteer gig is going pretty well. I’ve been there three Saturdays now and each one has been different. This last one began quietly enough, not many people there because of the impending Easter holiday. But then the last hour of my shift was full of a domestic dispute between a divorced couple with a toddler who were using the library as their court ordered visitation location. It didn’t get loud or violent or anything but they were both upset and stood in front of the welcome desk arguing away. Security tried to get them to settle their dispute or leave, they kept deciding to stay. Then they’d go back to the children’s area around the corner and ten minutes later they’d be back in front of the welcome desk arguing again. They were still at it when I left. And I was hoping to get to read too, but only managed it on the train to and from. I started Terry Pratchett’s Moving Pictures, one of the books I chose of the Once Upon a Time Challenge.

Iliana very astutely asked in a comment today if I had done any more book buying to continue celebrating my birthday. The answer? But of course! I had a 10% off entire purchase Half Price Book coupon begging to be used. So I did:

• Independent People by Halldor Laxness. I don’t know much about this book other than it won a Nobel Prize, or rather, the author did, and lots of bloggers have raved about it. The book is in such good condition it looks brand new.
• By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of his books for some time and this one looks brand new too. I don’t know what this is about but the flap description starts: “A hypnotic deathbed confession revolving around Opus Dei, crazed schemes, poetry, and Pinochet, By Night in Chile pours out the self-justifying dark memories of Father Urrutia, a half-hearted Chilean priest.” The Da Vinci Code this is not. I hope it proves to be both fun and well written.
• Salamander by Thomas Wharton. I was looking for The Logogryph and found Salamander instead. The main character is an eighteenth-century London printer who specializes in novelty books. He is asked by a Slovakian count to create for him an infinite book. I was hooked at eighteenth-century London printer.
• Kangaroo Notebook by Kobo Abe. I was looking for Woman in the Dunes but since I’ve never read Abe before I’m willing to try anything. And this one has a main character who discovers at breakfast one morning that he has what looks like radish sprouts growing out of his shins.

But that’s not all! My sister, remember, gave me a giftcard to Barnes and Noble online. After much mulling, adding to my shopping cart, removing from my shopping cart I settled on:

• The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It’s next after I finish Herodotus, which will be awhile, but I like to be prepared.
• On Reading Ruskin by Marcel Proust. Proust translated two books of Ruskin’s into French and supposedly wrote fantastic essay introductions to the books about reading Ruskin and reading in general. This book is those two introductions.
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Inspired by Danielle W&P reading, I got the new translation. I have “only” 800 pages left of Clarissa and want to have another huge book on hand when I’m done so I don’t go through big book withdrawal.

In case you are wondering, I went over the gift card amount, but isn’t that what I was supposed to do?

Now the only question is, where are all these new books going to go when I already have piles of TBR books that don’t fit on the TBR shelf? Maybe I should stop buying books. Nah!