…or something very close to it is lurking in the manga section of a local chain bookstore where I spent a few hours last night. I was looking for the second part of Strawberry Panic and since I didn’t see any SP at all, I turned and wandered over to the other side of the shelf and found the Azumanga Daioh! omnibus. I nearly fell out because I was so stoked to find it, and even more so because I totally wasn’t expecting a large, almost 700-page book to stare me in the face and twist my arm to buy it. But buy it I did and then, most predictably, started reading it last night when I got home after a very, very late dinner with friends

I also found an absolutely mesmerizing book about movies in the 1930s, but because I couldn’t find a price on it, I returned it to its place on the shelf. I’ve got so many books about film and its history that it didn’t seem I needed another book. But now, looking at the book’s entry at Amazon, I’m sorry I didn’t plunk down the $40 for it. Well, at least I can get it through Amazon when I can justify spending that much on a book, not to mention another book in the same series, about movies in the 1920s and then one not from the series about the silents.

Even if I didn’t read a single word in the book (and by extension, I’m sure the same would hold true for the companion book about the 1920s, and probably the other one, too) and just pored over the pictures, it would be totally worth the price. But throw in actually reading the commentaries and such and I’d probably get more out of it than I paid.

If I’m not careful, I’ll have to buy another bookcase, even though I have absolutely nowhere to put one more…