Books beat shoes--who'd a thunk it?

I went shopping today. I really needed a duvet cover to brighten up my depressingly dull room, and I found one on Oxford Street, which is basically the place you go to find practically anything you could ever want or (to some extent) imagine. It's about a 15 minute walk from my dorm, which gave me the opportunity to have more of a look around the neighborhood. I found a "Mexican" restaurant on my way down. I won't even offend anyone by reporting the sort of items listed on the menu. Luckily, I also found "wraps," or what I prefer to call "tortillas," at the super market, so I will be making myself quesadillas for lunch this week. And I will make them with mozerella. (I was amused to find that they don't carry American cheese at the market I went to. I guess it makes sense...)

Boring, boring, boring, UNTIL I went to the bookstore.

So I've been having this dilemma about whether to buy my books, or try to borrow them from the University of London library system. The majority of university students here do not buy their books, they get them from the library because of obvious cost issues. BUT I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF. I AM WEAK!

Biggest purchase of the day? Nope, not shoes. BOOKS!

The Norton Anthology of Shakespeare

Persuasion, Jane Austen

The Monk, Matthew Lewis

The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, James Hogg

Unfortunately, those books are only a very small portion of what I actually need. So, I will be going a la biblioteca for most of them. Especially the plays for my Modern Lit class. (The Birthday Party, for example, costs 15 pounds at the particular store I was at. Sorry, Pinter, I will not be paying $30 for your play...)

I must say that it's very comforting to have some books on my shelf. And now Middlemarch has some friends. 

Oh yeah, for those who are interested, I will be taking the following classes:

"Shakespeare" 

(We will be examining Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Othello, Kind Lear, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.)

"The Restoration and the 17th Century"

(Authors include: The Earl of Rochester, Behn, Richardson, Pepys, Dryden, DeFoe, Swift, Fielding, Gray, Hogarth, Sterne, Johnson and "Woman Poets"...)

"The Romantic Period" 

(Authors include: Byron, Austen, Hazlitt, Shelley and Keats)

AND

"Modern Literature"

(Authors include Nabokov, Beckett, Bishop, Williams, Miller, Pinter, Bond, Mammet and Art)

My eyes are going to be begging for me to stop reading by February. I'm very excited. Classes start Tuesday. Woot!