An Outstanding Book Bonanza

It’s been a great few days of books and book blogging for me. I had an all-time high number of visitors yesterday at 61, which I think is awesome! I’ve also gotten a lot of questions for my Weekly Geeks #12, which I’m working on writing up right now. I think I’ll have a review of Stardust, and answers about Reading Lolita in Tehran and Eragon/Eldest done in the next couple of days.

The more exciting book news comes from some luck I had a few months ago. In May, I was voted the Outstanding English Major at my university, an honor I’m actually very proud of. At the time, I didn’t get anything except a pat on the back and the immense satisfaction that my professors thought I was an important contributor to our major. However, about a month ago I got an e-mail from our Division Chair asking if I’d received my prize money. “Prize money!?” I thought, “How awesome!” I replied I hadn’t gotten anything yet, and within two days I had an e-mail with an online certificate to Powell’s Books worth an astounding $100!

$100 that I could only spend on books and only books, I was in heaven! I told my mom, and she said I should save that money for school books this fall. My elation was dimmed slightly, but I told her it was my money and I would spend it as I pleased. I waited with my $100 for quite some time, creating various wish lists and testing out scenarios to see how many books I could get for my $100 –so nerdy, but so awesome.

On my birthday a couple weeks ago, I finally put in my order. I had one set of books that came to $100.88, which was about as close to perfect as I could expect. However, guilt and an already immense stack of unread books got the best of me, and I only ended up only spending about $68 of my $100. However, that leaves me $32 or so to spend on school books or other things I may fall in love with later, so it seemed like an ok deal. Last Saturday, after weeks of anticipation, my huge box from Powell’s arrive, and I wasted what should have been a productive afternoon pouring over the box and trying to decide what I would read first.

The books I got were Blankets by Craig Thompson, Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marijane Satrapi, Water Cooler Dairies by Joni Cole and B.K. Rakhra, The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson, and Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates.

Granted, my new books are simply being added to an already large “To Be Read” pile, but I don’t care. When I move to Madison in August I and will have 10 days in town before I register for classes, and another 5 days after registration before classes start. I’m hoping to spend a good chunk of that time exploring Madison, finding a part time job, and reading a lot. My parents aren’t excited to be moving me and all of my books, but I think the extra trips up and down the stairs will do us all some good 🙂