Voracious Reader is visiting this week, and we always share bedtime reading aloud on our visits. Last summer it was the entire Spiderwick Chronicles. Yesterday, she selected her bedtime book: Pride and Prejudice. I just about burst with happiness, given that P&P is my favorite book in the entire world. She'd been perusing the bookshelves and found a little illustrated Classic Edition which I have a vague memory of buying from a 50 cent table. It's a slightly abridged version, written in more modern language (with the archaic terms explained a bit), and certainly good enough for a starter P&P. We read awhile last night, and when we got to the part where Darcy thought Lizzy wasn't pretty enough to dance with, VR interrupted me with, "He's going to fall in love with her. That's how it always works."
This morning, I noticed that her bookmark is several chapters ahead of where we stopped last night. That's my girl.
I have begun reading Pride And Prejudice and Zombies and am mostly enjoying it. The integration of the zombies is fine. The notion of Ninja Lizzy is vastly amusing, in fact. I'm running into a bit of trouble with the story on two fronts: #1 Mr Bennet is outright rude to Mrs Bennet, Darcy is rude to a totally oblivious Caroline, and Lady Catherine is a warrior of repute, none of which keeps in the spirit of the original. And worse, #2- not being now (nor having ever been, nor will ever be) a twelve year old boy, the incessant ball jokes are wearying (and yes, I mean those balls), and absolutely out of the character of the story. But outside of those quibbles, I'm enjoying the read.
Since I am running/walking outside most of the time lately, I haven't been listening to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog, regularly (I only listen when I exercise alone- it's an incentive, and lately I've been walking with my husband). I love this book- it makes me chuckle at least once a chapter, and I've laughed out loud several times. As soon as I finish listening to it, I am going to track down a copy and read it.
But today, we're not reading too much- today we're going to see UP. Review to follow
2 comments:
Three Men in a Boat is one of my favorites - very funny. I have an ancient copy of the book, as well as the audio version (abridged, unfortunately), but read by Hugh Laurie. I also have a sequel, which I have not read yet, but maybe will this summer - Three Men on Wheels (bicycles)!
Oh, I'll have to look for the Hugh Laurie audio.
Kathleen, I'm not sure how you feel about spec fic, but Connie Willis has written a novel called "To Say Nothing of the Dog" which is a lot of fun.
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