I'm on a little bit of a Jane Austen kick. Neel started it. Well not the initial kick. That started, too early perhaps, back in eighth grade. That was the first time I read Pride and Prejudice. (It's barely possible that the much beat-up copy you see near the top of the stack is the same copy, but doubtful. I'm like a little bird when it comes to new things, and a college reading list is no different. Give me a list and a bookstore and I'm toast.) As much of a reader as I was even back in the eighth grade P&P was a definite reach for me. My main impression was of lots of talking and dark ballrooms. Callum would say it was talkey.

Jane Austen, and her novels are the kinds of things that you (well, English Literature Majors at least, and the former ones) like to think you have a special relationship with. You know, I love her books best. We're so close. I understand her so well. And then somehow you turn it around and think that she must know that about you too. Somehow she knows that you understand her so well. Amazing how one woman who wrote so long ago and lived such a retired life can still be doing that to readers centuries later. When my favorite English professor in college declared it to be, in his opinion, one of the best novels ever written, well, we all had to love it that much more.

So Neel started me on my most recent kick. We watch the BBC production about once a year or so. When it first came out we were living in Pennsylvania while Neel was in graduate school for his Ph.D. Our closest friends were a group of gay men (most of whom were named Mark), and as soon as Mr. Darcy walked out of his pond at Pemberly, Mark called me. Colin Firth has that effect on everybody it seems. So a few weeks ago we watched the BBC production, and it really is the best, but I started thinking how long it had been since I'd read Pride and Prejudice itself. Have we talked about this before? Are you a re-reader? Because it absolutely blew my mind to hear that there are people out there who will read every book once and never reread them. There I definitely books whose covers I will never turn again, but I have my stand-bys. I have books that I look forward to returning to each year. They are like my winter jammies. Soft and cozy.

And then really, how can you read Pride and Prejudice and not want more? There are so many interesting spin-offs and variations out there. It's been fun to explore. Just from me personally, (you know because Jane and I are so close), I'd have to say that Pamela Aiden's Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series (three books) captures the man the best, although I could have just as easily left out the middle book, I loved the third. Darcy's Story was fine, and Without Reserve by Abigail Reynolds, a really, really interesting concept. She has several of these and tells the "what if?" For example, what if Elizabeth had accepted another proposal and Darcy had to win her affection from another man. I was totally intrigued by the idea and intrigued to hear that they were a bit, ahem, racy, but this one at least fell down for me. The proposal Elizabeth accepts is out of duty, a premise I have trouble believing even more than the pre-marital sex. Needless to say the racy bits were a bit gratuitous. Still, she captured the sense and the language well. When I have a bit more pin money, I may try again.

Well, you can't have too much Jane, so I moved on to Persuasion, my second favorite of her novels, and that's when, low and behold, I discovered that sometimes the universe does pay attention to me. Masterpiece Theater is doing a whole Jane Austen thing for weeks and weeks on end and airing film adaptations of all of her novels (some of them new), starting with Persuasion. (Although when did it become Masterpiece and not Masterpiece Theater and why did they change the music?) Again, this is just me, but movie-wise, I thought Persuasion was a bust (poor Neel who had never read it could not follow at all... go get the 1995 version, it's much better), but Northanger Abbey was great. Funny and spooky all at once. This week, upcoming (with a sad lack of football) we have Mansfield Park. I'm looking forward to it. And, it seems as if there is a whole world of spin-offs out there. Frederick Wentworth, Captain is in the stack up there, and I can't wait to dig into it.

What with all this book talk floating around, it seems a really appropriate time to wish the happiest of birthdays to Shoshana, one of my favorite readers. I have what I think is a great photo of her wearing a bucket hat and looking goofy, but somehow I think part of my gift to her will be not to share it here. She's the kind of friend that stretches me and that I always wish I could see more of, and that, I think is a very good thing in a friend. Happy, happy birthday my dear.