Yesterday this surprise came in the mail for me! Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels by Deirdre Le Faye has been on my wish list for years now! It is funny as everyone knows I like books, but rarely so people give me something off my wish list. This came from my friend Sandy (thanks again!!). We are in a year long needlework exchange together. It is through one of my online stores. The owner matched up stitchers and we do a sort of Secret (in this case not secret at all) Santa thing each month. Sandy always comes up with the best surprises. Pride and Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite novels, so this is great. The book is published by Harry N. Abrams. They print lovely art books. This one is also nicely illustrated. It is a combination of biography, criticism, and social history of Jane's time. I can't wait to start it. I admit that I have not read all of Jane Austen's novels, but I have seen all the movies. I plan on getting them all read, however! Fittingly I very recently found this Jane Austen Blog. Go take a peek--it is very cool.
And since I am on the topic of reading and classic literature--I am going to have to go through my current read pile and do a little reorganization. Since I have been reading a lot of library books lately, I have fallen behind in my other current reads. I have been dragging on the Dreiser book. I hate to say it, but I am going to have to temporarily set him aside. At over 900 pages, I am not going to get it read anytime soon. I have wanted to read at least one classic a month, and I have fallen behind. So I may just pull out a Jane Austen now, and get back to the Dreiser later. I hate starting a book, and then putting it away again, but I think sometimes you have to choose the right book for the right moment!