Happy Birthday Jane!

Today is the 234th birthday of Jane Austen! Dearest Jane was born on December 16th, 1775, "to George and Cassandra Austen at Steventon rectory." (Hampshire, England) "She was the eighth child and second daughter behind brothers James, George, Charles, Francis, Henry, Edward and sister Cassandra." (*Copyright JaneAusten.org: I couldn't get that straight.) 234, wow! And this means that the 200th anniversaries of her novels are coming up in the next decade! S&S in 2011, P&P in 2013, and Emma in 2015! Very exciting!

I don't know how she would have celebrated, but I suppose some kind of cake is in order, here. I have a devil's food cake mix, that I have been dying to cook up....

In addition, I saw the most wonderful story on BBC World News last week. In Cuban cigar rolling factories, many employ full-time Readers, who read aloud to those rolling cigars. The Reader that was interviewed started the morning by reading the paper cover-to-cover, and then read books such as "Romeo and Juliet" or "The Count of Monte Cristo." Also, modern books, such as "The Da Vinci Code". For some rollers, it inspired them to read books at home, for the first time. It was really quite something.



*Also: re-read "The True Meaning of Smekday" by Adam Rex. I have a signed copy of it, in which he even SPELLED MY NAME RIGHT! I know, I'm impressed also.

Wonderful book, good set-up, dialogue, characters. Also hilarious, which can be hard. Most of the humour comes from my favourite character, and also the best, J.Lo. He is one of the Boov, which are a kind of alien race, which invades Earth and renames it Smekland, after glorious Captain Smek. J.Lo is not his real name, but the one he picked out for himself. In any case, his combination of choppy English, heroic bravery, Boovish quirks, alien knowledge, and amazing cartoons, make him the best none-heroine character I've read in a very long time.

Kudos to Mr. Adam Rex, and his book. Here are links to his blog, and website.

Coming up before the end of the week: the dreaded literary mountain Emma, and the search through the book store jungle for a foot-noted copy!