Emma by Jane Austen

I’ve been meaning to read Jane Austen for years, having seen and liked at least one adaptation of each of her completed novels, but somehow never got around to it until now. Of the adaptations I’ve seen, the version of Emma starring Kate Beckinsale and Olivia Williams is probably the one I’ve rewatched the most. I also saw the first episode of the currently-airing version starring Romola Garai before I’d quite finished the book, and have since seen the second episode. As such, my approach may be somewhat skewed.

Emma Woodhouse is young, pretty, rich, and clever. She has no intentions of ever marrying because her social and financial position remove the necessity of such a step, and instead plans to remain single and take care of her father until his death. She’s also very prejudiced and classist, self-deluded, often blind to the realities of her world, and rather on the indulged side. Due to her social status, most of the people around her seem to be as blind to her faults as she is, and those closer to her are fond enough of her to ignore her faults. The exception is Mr. Knightley, her friend and neighbor who is some years her senior, and whose brother is married to Emma’s sister.

Having recently matched her governess with a rich local man, Emma has come to consider herself a matchmaker, and has set her sights on Harriet Smith, an illegitimate girl who likely has well-off parents. Unfortunately for both girls, Emma isn’t a good matchmaker at all, and her attempts cause many problems for both.

( more with spoilers )

P.S.:  OMG Jane Austen almost caused a minor panic attack due to threatening my tagging system! (ETA: 19 1/2 hours awake : "OMG WHAT GENRE IS THIS DOES CLASSICS REALLY COUNT AS A GENRE OF FICTION??")

adventures in booksales & rightstuf

This weekend is the Adult Literacy Council booksale, one of the two big local charity booksales.  For those not familiar with me an booksales, I go and grab anything that looks like something I might possibly read at some distant point in time.  (And as romance novel readers are the most voracious readers in existence-and by "romance novel readers" I mean people who read almost exclusively romance novels-romance novels tend to be 30-60% of the books at booksales, so they tend to all but beg you to take a box for $5 or so so they won't have to find something else to do with them.  This is why I have a bookcase full of unread romance novels, perhaps 1/4 of which I will ever actually read.)  As such, books languish in my backlog for years, and I only finish about half the ones I actually do try to read, with the rest taken to the local used bookstores for store credit throughout the year.

And booksale shopper tendencies are...interesting? The booksale isn't where it was the last few years, so I had to find the building, and was surprised to see the building was about half the size of the previous one.  Then I got inside and saw it was because they had about half as many books.  The more aggressive buyers also didn't seem to be there.  But then, both this booksale and the Library Booksale are about a month and a half later this year than they usually are, and I think the Library Booksale had way more books than usual.  Actually, I think they both had about the reverse of each other's typical selection, which probably means that people cleaning out their closets do so a bit earlier in the year.

And I must express grumpiness over the fact that, in previous years, when I wasn't looking for them to read, the booksales had tons of Georgette Heyer, Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, and Mary Balogh books, but this year they didn't.  These are, I think, such prolific standards (along with many others, of course) that fans could donate them with little concern over being able to find them again the next time they felt like a reread.  Yet, there were very few of any of these (or specific books I was looking for in general, which may have resulted in quick trips elsewhere to service my greediness) for some reason, though the general availability, as far as I know, makes sense.  I mean, when it changed from boxes and boxes of traditional regencies a couple years ago to barely any, it made sense, as publishers basically stopped putting them out altogether and people started hoarding them.

Whilethere, i was struck with a sudden need to see what i thought of things I was obsessed with as a teen and so grabbed every Victoria Holt/Philippa Carr/Jean Plaidy (all the same person) book I could finf, not to mention some Dorothy Eden and I think a few Mary Stewarts and old school Nancy Drews.  This should be interesting, as I'm sure 98% of my reading dozens of them was my teeenaged self's interest in young ladies in mysterious houses, often accompanied by mysterious men.  I only very vaguely recall the plot of <em>The India Fan</em>, and can't remember a thing about the rest.

Somebody also donated a ton of Important Books that are apparently from some sort of book club.  I used it to replace classics I've read and owned but can't find (and will probably just put them in the backlog, as I haven't read them in years) and grab some I haven't read, but I'm rather amused at how the books are clearly designed to make your bookshalves look Important and Intellectual.  You know, the small, solemnly bound hardcover things with gold letters.  (I have small hands, so these are actually a good size for me.)

In other news, rightstuf.com has Del Rey books on sale until 10/19.  They also have some pretty good grabs in their weekly specials:

Adventures of the Mini Goddesses: $19.99
Ah! My Goddess Season 1: $26.99
Black Lagoon Season 1 and 2: $39.99
Ergo Proxy: $29.99*
Gankutsuou: $26.99*
Ghost Hunt Season 1 and 2: $14.99 each
Kyo Kara Maoh Season 1: $34.99* **
Kyo Kara Maoh Season 2: $45.99* **
Saiyuki: $24.99**
Sakura Wars: $14.99
Shakugan no Shana: $29.99
Shonen Onmyouji: $39.99
Slayers: movie box:  $19.99***
Story of Saiunkoku: Season 1: $39.99**

*These have been on sale for a while, so they might go away soon.
**These sets are 39 eps each (except for Saiyuki, which is 50 eps), which may be as good as prices get for licensed anime.
***Your thoughts! Give them to me!  Bearing in mind that I only watched about 15 minutes of the OVA before giving up, but passionately adore the 3 seasons that have been released in the US.

Almost all of these are things I want or at least want to see, or would want if I didn't already have them/hadn't already seen them.

ETA:  I feel I should mention that it causes me thing that several of the things I'm acquiring come in several lovely sets, but I'm ending up with books from all the sets, instead of managing to get them all in the same version.  Pain I say.