Emma

It's official: I'm a Jane Austen fan.

I didn't plan it. I tried to avoid it, honestly. I read P&P and S&S long ago, in a whirl of trying to knock off a couple of must-reads, without knowing what all the JA fuss was about. This month, I was simply going to read Persuasion with my book club. It would accomplish two goals at once by also crossing it off my Classics Club list.

But somehow I ended up requesting a huge stack of Jane Austen reference materials from the library along with an annotated Persuasion, and I was off. Reading Jane. Watching Jane movies. Browsing through Jane reference books. Writing about Jane.

Before I knew it, I was hooked. I joined our library branch manager in oozing the wonderfulness of Jane to the book club. I read Persuasion and moved to Northanger Abbey and then Emma and, before I even finished Emma, I'm reading Mansfield Park.

Emma is an absolute delight of a character. Interfering, but with the best of intentions. A bit full of herself, but also easily humbled by a friend's sharp words. Certain that she had no desire to marry, but then abruptly and completely certain of her love for an unexpected person.

I've loved all these Jane Austen characters so much that I feel like I've been these places in England and befriended them at various parties and dinners and walks and balls.

I'm loving Austen in August.