Happy Valentine's Day

A week ago we rented the movie The Jane Austin Book Club. The book club comes into being when a woman discovers her husband is having an affair. Her close friend decides a monthly get together with three other friends will help get her through the current misery. The women are all Jane Austin fans and decide to reread her books and discuss one each month.

Several years ago we both tried to read Pride and Prejudice, after watching Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan battle out the books merits in You've Got Mail. I got through page one and decided I couldn't deal with sentences that were ten lines long. I felt I needed a highlighter to mark the comma's, the subject, and the verb of each sentence to not get lost in what was being said. After watching the book club movie though I thought maybe I should give them another try someday.

Last night I told Jeff I was going to run out to Barnes and Noble and get a book for the plane ride back to Missouri. A few minutes later he came in with a gift bag and Valentine's Day Card; there inside were all six of Jane Austin's novels. What a wonderful surprise! He surprises me constantly with the things he thinks of. Wonderful husband of mine!

I've picked out Northanger Abbey to read first. It's one of the shortest. I usually read pretty fast even to the point of skimming paragraphs, but that's not possible with these. They need to be digested sentence by sentence and the first page of Northanger Abbey is no exception! I'll enjoy this present for the next year, it will surely take me that long to get through them!

Jane Austin's Books: Sense and Sensibility, 1811; Pride and Prejudice, 1813; Mansfield Park, 1814; Emma, 1816; Northanger Abbey, 1818; and Persuasion, 1818.