Period Days are Reading Days

Ugh, I’m on my period:

No joke this enters my mind every month

And we women all know what that feels like:

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Being on your period is no fun at all, you don’t want to do anything.

Everything hurts, you hate everything, feel bad, etc. All you want to do is check out from life.

So the best thing to do is grab your blanket, ice cream:

Hot tea:

And a good book to read. After all:

Yep, there is no better way to ride out the storm of pain than with a good book

Period days are reading days.

For more period stories, go to Something’s Scratching at the Window

For more book posts, go to Hot Humid Days are Reading Days

For more Jane Smiley quotes, go to A Quest of Swords and Wizards: The Crown Conspiracy

Book Club Picks: At Home in Mitford

So as you know I started a book club this year:

Every month we read a book and I do a little post on the book we read and discussed.

There is no theme, other than with each month, a different member gets to pick a book, whichever one they want. I went first, the next month was someone choose Sandcastle Kings, and this month another member choose:

At Home in Mitford (The Mitford Years #1) by Jan Karon

This book is set in the fictional town of Mitford, North Carolina. The books center around the Vicar, Father Tim. Father Tim is turning sixty and feels like he should give up on being a minister. He feels as if his life is stagnant, his preaching dry, and that the community would be better off with a new rector. He promises one more year, but if things don’t change, then he will retire.

Hmm…

But soon things start changing in his life. A giant black dog shows up at his home and won’t leave. Barnabas, what he names the dog, is strangely only calmed down if one speaks a bible verse at him.

Then a beautiful woman moves in next door. She is scatterbrained, always in need of assistance, and stirs up feelings in the reverend’s dormant heart.

A painting found in an attic is donated to the church which may be a genuine Vermeer.

His best friends are going to have a baby, even though they are in their fifties; his secretary has started a romance with the mailman, he gets a holds-nothing-back housekeeper, and finds himself suddenly fostering a preteen boy.

Someone breaks into the church repeatedly, stealing nothing but food.

Hmm…

Then Father Tim gets word of a jewelry ring operating in the area with them smuggling them through customs in old antiques. Some of the jewels Father Tim finds hidden in an urn in the church. Could someone in the community be involved?

Miss Sadie is the last remaining member of the oldest and richest family in Mitford. She tells Father Tim the story of the love that got away and reveals a secret that has been hidden for over forty years.

So I really loved this book. I thought the characters were fun and realistic. The town felt like it could be your small town, and the characters, the people you know or interact with.

It was so cute how everyone cared about their town and each other-getting in everyone’s business to help out. It made me want to live there.

The back of the book hints at it being more of a mystery, but while there are elements that are puzzling I wouldn’t classify it as a mystery. Well, whatever it is it was a fun book and easy to love.

For more book club picks, go to Book Club Picks: Sandcastle Kings

To the Extreme

Yep, I love to read and I read A LOT. I’m known as “The Great Reader”, in my family.

Books are my first and ultimate love. 🙂

After all:

I can’t imagine my life without books.

Yes, reading is AWESOME!

For more bookish posts, go to My Home Away from Home

For more quotes, go to I Don’t Care What You Think

One of a Kind

Now when Jane Austen wrote Emma she created a character that was completely different from any of the other heroines.

Yep, Emma is truly unique and here are the reasons why.

1) No Worries About Money

Unlike the other heroines, Emma has no worries at all about money. While Elizabeth and Jane Bennet, Pride & Prejudice, are from an okay family, their estate is entailed so their family are constantly worrying about how they will marry the girls off. Elinor and Marianne, Sense & Sensibility, were raised wealthy, but too fall victim to the dreaded entailment

and ended up schlepped to a cottage, their mother worrying if she will be able to get any man interested as their dowry is so small. Fanny, Mansfield Park, mother was rich but married down, living in poverty. Fanny managed to escape this as her wealthy aunt and uncle brought her into their home, but she wasn’t treated nice but constantly reminded that she was a poor relation. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Moreland comes from a financially ok family, but as we see when James announces his engagement they don’t have gobs of cash. This is a moment of strife for Henry Tilney, as he has been trained to marry wealthy, rather than for love. Anne Elliot, Persuasion, was also born wealthy, but finds herself heading toward poverty as her father is whittling it away on the stupidest things.

Out of all of them, Emma is the only one who is finacially stable throughout the whole book. She also doesn’t have to worry about entailment, as her father has no restrictions. In fact, she is the favorite of her father’s children, so in fact she’s the one who will be getting all the money.

And she nows this. However, unlike the other Austen heroines, this security of life does cause her to become bored, which leads her to meddling in others lives.

2) Doesn’t Want to Get Married

Unlike the other heroines of Jane Austen’s world, Emma doesn’t want to get married. I wrote a whole post on it, The Real Revolutionary, so I’m only going to touch base on it here.

Emma doesn’t feel the need to marry as she doesn’t need money (her father is rich and she will inherit it all), she has never met a man who she felt was her equal, she is independent enough in her own home as she is mistress of the house, etc. For her, she’s believes she can have a thrilling and fulfilling life as an independent woman.

Elizabeth (P&P) isn’t mooning over any guy in particular, at least not at first, but she dreams of a time that she will be married, and to someone she is intensely in love with. That’s why she turns down Mr. Collins, and is shocked that Charlotte would choose the security of Mr. Collins instead of love. Elinor and Marianne both have their own romantic fantasies. Elinor wishes and hopes for the love of Edward, while Marianne has this huge romantic vision of her dream man. Fanny has been mooing over Edmund ever since she was a young girl, and while she doesn’t presume they will marry, that doesn’t stop her from dreaming. Catherine loves romantic novels, so she has all kinds of dreams and views on what type of man she will marry one day. And Anne, well she wanted marry Fredrick, until she was convinced not to, and afterwards dreamed of him coming back and the two reuniting.

3) Does Whatever She Wants

Unlike the other characters, Emma is a bit selfish. After all, she was raised wealthy, with whatever she wants at the tip of her fingers. So she just does whatever she wants to. This causes some big problems as she doesn’t always think about how her actions affect others, or the repercussions. Thank goodness for Mr. Knightly to keeping her straight.

Elizabeth never does what she wants as she is always worried about her sisters and keeping the younger ones straight, while protecting kind-hearted. After her father’s death, Elinor takes all responsibilities of the household and has to live her life taking care of everyone else. Fanny is too busy pleasing everyone as she doesn’t want to be kicked out of her house, and was raised to be subservient. Catherine doesn’t have the means or the personality to do whatever she wants as she has a large family, and is the daughter of a minister. Anne, is another one who is always trying to please everyone else, turning down the love of her life because of that.

4) Doesn’t Like to Read

Unlike any other Austen herione, Emma hates reading.

She strives to improve it, but finds herself bored and turning to other amusements, such as meddling.

This is strange as almost every other main character has a crucial scene that involves their thoughts on literature. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth is an avid reader, bringing about the scene in the library were she and Mr. Darcy compare their views on the subject. And of course Mr. Darcy saying that a truly accomplished woman must love reading. Marianne is a huge fan of poetry, romance, and Shakespeare. She rejects Edward as a potential suitor for Elinor as he doesn’t read that much, (implying that Elinor also enjoys reading). She believes that a man who doesn’t share her views on reading isn’t worthy enough, causing her to fall head over heels when Willoughby mentions his equal love of Shakespeare’s sonnets. In Mansfield Park, Fanny loves reading but not plays or the theater as she sees it as immoral. In fact she tries to stay out of the whole family putting on a show. In Northanger Abbey,the whole plot revolves around a girl reading so many novels, she ends up with an overactive imagination. In Persuasion, Anne loves reading poetry books, something that becomes a crucial part in the book. She starts showing a brokenhearted sailor more uplifting poems, bringing everyone to speculate whether or not there will be a future match there, along with causing Fredrick to realize that he loves Anne.

5) Best Friend is a Man of no Relation

Emma doesn’t have any girlfriends, just a governess until Harriet comes along who is more of a project than a friend. The only one she has to converse with and discuss her opinions on subjects is Mr. Knightly. This is very radical from the time period as unmarried women were not often hanging out and spending time with men who were not related to them. Emma gets around this as Mr. Knightley is considered her “father’s friend” by the community, even though in fact Mr. Knightley is her best friend.

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth had her sister Jane and her best friend Charlotte. In Sense & Sensibility, the sisters are best friends. In Mansfield Park, Fanny’s best friend is a male, but it is her brother William. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine has Mrs. Allen, her sisters, and the fair-weather friend Isabella. In Persuasion, Anne has her mentor and old teacher.

As you can see none of these other characters would have ever thought to befriend a man who wasn’t related as it would have been scandalous, and only Emma is daring enough to go past society’s rules in a number of ways and do her own thing.

When Jane Austen wrote Emma she set out to create a character very unlike anything we had seen from her before, and from the society of the times. Her differences may make her unlikeable to some, but I think it just makes her a more likable and entertaining character.

For more on the book Emma, go to 200 Years of Glorious Emma

For more on Emma Woodhouse, go to Fashionably Postworthy

Stepping Into Another World

Yep, reality is a cold, dark, and horrifying place. But there is light!

Yep, thanks to books we can leave our dreary lives for another more adventurous, amazing, romantic, timeless life.

Yep:

So see ya real life!

For more bookish posts, go to The Meaning of Nothing