Great day at the mailbox!

I bought a couple of things from eBay about a week or so ago, and lo! They both arrived today. :)

The first one was a book by my favourite writer/artist, Nick Bantock. You might know him as the fellow behind the Griffin and Sabine books. After reading those books, as well as his intriguing "mixed-media how-to" book called Urgent 2nd Class, I decided to pick up his autobiography, The Artful Dodger.

In The Artful Dodger, he talks about (and shows photographs of) each of his works up to that date. I spent an entire weekend curled up, poring over all of the pictures, with the end result being that a) I want to read ALL of his books, and b) if I'm ever on the west coast when he's doing a book-signing, I have to shake the man's hand.

The book I was most intrigued by was The Egyptian Jukebox, so it was the first one I looked for on eBay. (I'm pacing myself to buying one a month. I can get a tad obsessive when it comes to books!) I was so excited to see in the listing that it was a signed copy, and when it arrived today, I found it had a wonderful protective plastic jacket. I'll let you know how it is.

The other book that arrived was a bit of a quest for me. One thing that not many people know about me is that I enjoy looking at the artistry of different Tarot decks. Well, a number of years ago, I stumbled across a review of Tarot for Cats, a deck written from the perspective of and for cats. I could only find a few images online, but the ones I did find made me giggle. The set went out of print very quickly, so the ones on eBay are astronomically-priced as a result. But I kept looking anyway.

Well, I stumbled across a listing for the book from the set. Because it was just the book, with no cards included, it was pretty much dirt-cheap! Inside the book are full-colour illustrations of each of the cards, which is all I wanted anyway. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and I'm sitting here grinning now.

A good day for the mailbox, and the bookshelf, indeed.