The Best Money Ever Spent

At Thomas' school they have a book club where you can buy really lovely books for discounted prices and the school makes commission on their sales. So when I indulge in my book purchasing addiction really I am just helping his school raise funds. See, I am totally selfless like that.

I ordered this one with the Christmas season sneaking up on us for the discounted price of £4, reduced from £12.99. You gotta love a bargain like that right?

I have really fond childhood memories of watching the short movie adaptation of this book at Christmastime and feeling fully festive.

The beautifully presented hard bound version of the book in it's super snazzy presentation case I bought also came along with a CD reading of the book.

Tonight after their bath we read some stories and then I asked Thomas if he'd like us to read the Snowman book (Eli and I had read it earlier while Thomas was at school) but he was so impressed that it came with a CD of his very own that he wanted to listen to it.

So I took the CD player in their room, tucked my boys up in bed, switched off the light and pressed play.

Silence followed, as did sleep.

And that my friends is priceless.

Well That's Not British!

I recall when I decided to join the classics book club over at 5 minutes for books that it'd be just the incentive and motivation I needed to read all of those books that a person really should read before they die.

I figured with all the novels of Austen, Dickens and Hardy alone we had a good few years worth of titles to trudge our way through.

So when I saw this last months selection was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn I thought to myself 'WHAT?' I came to the sad realisation that I am a patriotic literary snob, a fact that I had never previously discovered about myself. How could this Betty Smith woman and her book that I had never heard of in all my life be regarded as a classic?

How could it be in the same league as Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre (even if it was a bit of a yawn-fest)? I almost opted out. After all nobody cares if I play along or not. But then I saw the selection for January was Hamlet. I am most definitely skipping that one.

Now don't get me wrong I don't mind some Shakespeare, the fellow was an odd looking genius and I have spent many a day visiting his hometown of Stratford Upon Avon but please oh please spare me the Monarchy and spare me the tragedies. I love Shakespeare for his comedies and his comedies alone (truly you have to watch Much ado about nothing if only for Keanu Reeves in leather pants and not a stitch else).

So not wanting to slack off for two months I decided to read A tree grows in Brooklyn. I put my British literary snobbishness aside and dove in.

The result?

Never have I been both so depressed and so inspired by the same book.

I loved it.

I also have to admit it was a welcome relief to read it after the wordiness of those Austen and Bronte chicks.

I found the character of Francie enchanting from start to finish.

I love that Sissy reaffirmed to me that we can judge people for their actions but their hearts may make them better people than we actually are.

I loved too that I came to the realisation that parenting isn't about being perfect. It is about doing the best we can to make our children's lives better than our own. Though I may not be able to meet every single one of my children's needs perfectly if I do what I can it will benefit them and they in turn will benefit their children.

As one generation passes and another is born new opportunities abound and families are the vehicles for these opportunities.

Generally when I read I give the book away when I am finished (or else our house would be a library by now) but this one I am keeping in my permanent collection.

The selection for next month is Charles Dickens:A Christmas Carol (to be read by December 2nd) so I'll happily be resuming my British literary snobbishness for that. Why not join in?

Enduring to the End

This month for the Classics book club at 5 Minutes for Books the book of choice was Jane Eyre. I was really excited to read it because I actually never had. Which admission completely stunned my mother in law as she rates Jane Eyre as the best book written ever. How could it be that one as reasonably well read as myself could have been so unfortunate as to have never read from the pages of Jane Eyre?

I live here in Yorkshire and where the Bronte's are from, Haworth, is really close by. So having adored Wuthering Heights as a teenager (oh Heathcliff!) I have felt almost like I have been living on hallowed ground. But only the lazy type of feeling not the actual type of feeling that has ever motivated me to get off my backside and take the 30 minute trip to Haworth and enjoy all that Bronte country has to offer.

Several chapters in I was gripped. My very own mother used to threaten to send me away to boarding school as punishment for my misbehaviour as a child which naturally terrified me to my inner core but somehow along the way I have romanticised just how wonderful life in an orphanage/boarding school would actually be. I have pondered on how great it must be to have such close kinship with your fellow boarders and the unity that would result from existing on a diet of mouldy bread or burned porridge and sleeping three to a bed. Or maybe I have just watched Annie one time too many?

As Jane survived Lowood and matured I was sad that she chose to leave but was excited to accompany her on her adventures in the big wide world.

It was at this point in my reading that my sister in law happened to enquire how I was finding the novel and decided never to speak to me again as I described Jane Eyre as dull. The middle chapters are seriously long and needlessly drawn out.

Mr Rochester was a very sad replacement for Mr Darcy in my mind (as I had just read Pride and Prejudice) and I found him strangely creepy and not at all attractive (Yes, I am shallow thank you very much!). Flirting with a young girl half his age, insisting on calling her his pet or his elf. I once very briefly dated a guy who insisted on calling me pumpkin, pet names like those should be outlawed, seriously. They're just plain wrong. Then he proceeds to occasionally call her Janet even though she never once refers to herself as anything other than Jane. If her name were indeed truly Janet Eyre I feel sure that hideous Mrs Reed woman would've been calling her it from day one rather than a kindly shortened version of her name. I was desperate for whole chapters on end for Jane to spout out, 'Hey Mister, I am neither your imp, elf or pet and the name is Jane, you humongous buffoon' sadly it never came. Gutted. Such a comment would really have brightened up the narrative.

By far my biggest concern at this point in my reading was what on earth was in existence and maniacally laughing on the third floor that relentlessly bites and knives people? I started to seriously wonder if Charlotte Bronte was some precursor for Stephen King.

But Rochester & Eyre are almost united before the creature on the third floor is exposed as his actually legal but slightly crazy wife and Jane takes off with no money or possessions for fear of being kept as his mistress on the continent.

Which results in the highly unlikely turn of events that she randomly wanders for three days seeking food and shelter and is eventually taken in by St. John Rivers and his sisters who end up actually being related to her and she happily shares with them the fortune she inherits from one of their Uncles.

St. John tries to coerce Jane into marriage saying some of the most blunderous things that no man should ever say to a woman 'You were formed for labour, not for love...', yep, because compliments like that will have the ladies lining up to marry you. She continues to refuse his less than tempting offer.

She randomly hears Rochester's disembodied voice and returns to Thornfield only to find it burned courtesy of the crazy wife on the third floor who jumped to her death from the flaming ruins. Jane discovers Rochester was badly maimed in the fire and left blind and without a hand. She of course finds him and it is the stuff Disney films are made of. Like a modern(ish) day Beauty and the Beast. Except she isn't exactly beautiful and he isn't exactly a beast.

But it goes without saying they live happily ever after and he even regains vision in one eye just to make everything fine and dandy.

So what I am trying to say in essence is......next time I consider reading Jane Eyre I will just read Pride and prejudice for 5,321,213th time instead.

Without Prejudice

One day I found myself here only to find a review about Pride and Prejudice. I was excited to see it was all part of a Classics Book Club and before you could say 'Mr Darcy' I was all signed up.

The deadline for reading Pride and Prejudice had already passed but I knew I could squeeze it in and have the next book (Jane Eyre) read on time (October 7th) so I indulged myself.

I love Pride and Prejudice it is the literary equivalent of pulling on your snuggliest PJ's, sitting in your most comfy chair and having a humongous mug of hot chocolate with like 40 sugars. It is pure comfort reading at it's best

I had been attempting to recapture my adoration for Mr Darcy-Firth so I figured this was as good a place to start as any. I have seen the BBC adaptation so many times that when I read the text it is those very same characters I see in my mind.

Pride and Prejudice has long been a favourite of mine for the following reasons:

1. Why use 3 words to make your point when you could use 27 (true of all the classics)?

2. You have to love a bad boy don't you? And P&P has two. I just cannot help myself Wickham fools me every time with his dashing good looks and pleasing words and the fact that he is in the Militia. I always hope somehow he'll surprise me and not turn out to be the shallow monster he really is. Then we have Mr Darcy, who the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which tuned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him , well, we all know how that turns out, happily ever after.

3. I think I would have truly loved to live in the setting of Pride and Prejudice. Sure I would have missed denim and electricity but doesn't it just seem a wonderful life to fill your hours with reading, walking, chatting and the occasional ball?

4. I can't help but alter between smiling and grimacing whenever I read of Mr Collins (Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking.) and his smarmy nature, his refusal to accept Elizabeth would not choose to marry him and his devout adoration of that old beast Lady Catherine De Bourgh.

5. Mrs Bennett a woman of mean understanding, little information and uncertain temper. To give her an ounce of credit she was concerned about the welfare of her and her daughters should her husband pass away but all the same I would be thoroughly mortified if she were my parent. For which reason I find her highly entertaining. Her lack of thinking before speaking and inevitably saying the wrong thing in the presence of the wrong people never ceases to be amusing.

6. The Spice Girls think they invented 'girl power' but they are sadly mistaken. It was Jane Austen in her heroine Elizabeth Bennett instead. I applaud Lizzy for standing up for herself endlessly and so articulately to boot. I wish I were half the woman she was back in my dating days.

In essence it is a witty and romantic love story and what is there to dislike about that? So if you haven't read it, slap yourself around the head and go get a copy.

You will not be disappointed!!