I have something of a headache, so this will probably end up being a short post (she said, hopefully) BUT I just wanted to toot my horn and announce to the world that I have, at long last, finished Pride and Prejudice.
Yeah, I know, it's pathetic. I should have read it in high school with all of the other library-lurkers. Every time I saw it on my shelf, I could hear my inner drill sergeant screaming, "YOU CALL YOURSELF A BOOKWORM?" And then, depending on my mood, I'd cry or scream back or just kind of be like, "Oh, drill sergeant, you're so funny," and cheerfully skip off to read something way below my age group (oh, yes, I'll be doing a post on how children's literature is suddenly appealing to me more than either adult or YA literature at this point in my life--further proof that as I age, I am, in fact, mentally reverting to my childhood) (there's an excellent quote by C. S. Lewis about that. Points to whoever can find it).
ANYWAY. I finished reading it, and I'm all in awe of Jane Austen, because she is fabulous and how do I not read her all the time? Anyway anyway. I will momentarily be taking a break from her to read some other stuff (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell! I got it for Christmas because I've checked it out of the library periodically over the past three years or so, and have always had to return it before I could make any real progress in it, so I decided to invest and then I could take as much time as I wanted to reading it, which clearly I needed) (also, a book about the Irish mob. Is it weird that I like reading books about gangsters so much, and am all interested in them, even though movie violence grosses me out and I'm super-squeamish about it, and also, in real life, I'm pretty much just a giant wimp? Whatever. It's probably ironic). But I'll return to her books soon. Soon-ish.
Also I need to read Lord of the Rings. I've watched the movies about six times each, so it's probably about time to, you know, read the source material ("YOU CALL YOURSELF A BOOKWORM?").
Also: short story collections! I have never really been a short story reader, but I'm trying to write them because they give me a nice break from the painful agonies of my novels, which, guys, are taking me forever to write. But I was doing research and chanced upon Alice Munro, and some nice stuff about her, and thought, okay, yes, I will give her a try. And I will be tremendously annoyed if I get some of her stuff and it turns out to be boring or dirty or any of those things that makes me want to throw a book against the wall, especially when I've bought it. I hate buying books that end up being terrible. I try to avoid it as much as possible by doing egregious amounts of research like somehow the Internet can predict whether a book will be a good investment or not and P.S., it can't. Technology, you disappoint me.
So, blah blah blah, that's all. Any books to recommend? Any that you've read recently and you would like to join me in bragging? Or that you would like to lament not having read (hey! I still have never finished a Charles Dickens book!)? Leave a comment!
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