Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Persuasion


Firstly, may I begin by apologizing for my long silence? Don't worry, I haven't stopped reading, by any stretch of the imagination, but my reading time has mostly been snatches of time before work and during meals, as well as for most of Sunday afternoon (as part of my Sabbath). But this curtailed reading time has meant that I haven't been doing much writing about what I've read.

Anyway, thanks for your patience! Here's a review of a book that I finished back at the beginning of the month.

Book: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Time: set in the years 1814 and 1815

Description: Superb novel, autumnal and mellow in tone, concerns the lives and loves of the Elliot family and their friends and relatives, in particular the thwarted romance between Anne Elliot (Austen's sweetest, most appealing heroine) and Captain Frederick Wentworth. Finely drawn characters, gentle satire and wonderful recreation of genteel life in the English countryside. (from amazon.com)

I really enjoyed this book. It was the first book that I've read in a while where I was excited for the end to find out what happened and how it ended, not simply to reach the end.

I really liked Anne, the main character. She was a character I could really relate to and like from beginning to end.  I thought she handled the whole situation honorably, as did Captain Wentworth. It was a welcome change. I really felt for Anne, and wanted things to turn out well. Man, her family was horrible! How did she turn out so well??

I found all the characters and situations realistic and engaging. I'll admit, though, that I really enjoy scenes that play on awkwardness, either because of (unknown) social norms or because of emotional undercurrents, and there was a lot of the second, especially, in this book.

It was the shortest of Austen's books that I've read so far, and also, I thought, the easiest (but maybe I'm just getting used to her style). It was possibly the book that I've enjoyed the most as well (although Emma might also claim that distinction).

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Planning

About a week ago, I spent probably an hour online, researching possible books I could read. It was very exciting--look at all these cool books I could read! I researched each book, typed its name on my list of books that I want to read. And then I realized: I could have used this time to read instead of to plan. Yes, some planning is good; but I had reached the point where I almost spent more time deciding what to read in the future than I did actually reading books. How ridiculous is that?!

Monday, July 2, 2012

Journey Through Time

I've decided to challenge myself with another goal as well: to read a book set in and published during every time period between the year 0 and the present. My time periods are honestly completely subjective, and have nothing to do with actual historical periods; I just divided earlier years, with less books, into hundred-year blocks, and made the time blocks smaller as books became more common.

As with the Read Around the World challenge, this challenge isn't about finishing by a certain time so much as it is about the journey: reading books from all different time periods, seeing how other people thought and did things.