Currently reading
Saints in Art
The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson's Envelope Poems
Selected Poems
Emily Dickinson
Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Gone with the Wind
The Annotated Persuasion
I'm surprised whenever I hear that this is someone's favorite Austen novel. It's a difficult read -- dark and bleak. There's not one happy moment or event that doesn't hinge directly on unhappiness or outright misery. There isn't much humor, and when there is, it's rather over-broad.Of course, it's still Austen. So it's still brilliant. We can all be grateful that she had the time and strength to rewrite the "proposal" scene into the magnificent passage it is. It gives me the shivers at a time. I have to slow my reading speed to a walk. (If hearing that there's a proposal in an Austen novel counts as a "spoiler," you need to stay inside more. With a good book.)
As in all the "Annotated" editions, David Shapard is meticulous and generous. Even a reader new to Austen will have no difficulty navigating her way with Shapard to help. And he always gives fair warning about spoilers.