It seems that I’ve missed a whole month! Where did January go? I’ve not posted since the end of December – have you missed me? Probably not…
My neglect has been bugging me, but honestly, I’ve not had the time to act on that niggle in the back of my mind. I started a new job the week before Christmas, and new hours and a new location have meant that I haven’t been able to use my usual blogging time – i.e. on the train! – to write. And I’ve not felt like putting my laptop on at home. I look at a screen all day, and my evenings and weekends have become very precious to me. The idea of using them to look at a computer for any longer, even to write, fills me with lethargy.
However, on Friday my first magazine at my new job went to print, and after a hectic few weeks I feel a bit more myself again! I felt like a new start, and so thought a blogging update was in order. I’m still following Savidge Reads and AJ Reads’ Classically Challenged, and reading along with them, but the reviews have been getting behind. I was already behind on my reviews before I started my new job, and now my “to review” shelf is filling me with despair! But I want my blog to be fun, not a chore (another reason why I haven’t forced myself to blog while I haven’t felt like it), so I thought that I could combine a little update with two short reviews in one. Hopefully you won’t feel too short-changed! More
My mum has wanted me to read Trollope for years. I’m not sure why I resisted the recommendation really, as she usually knows what I’ll like: she did introduce me to the wonderful Rebecca after all. I think the idea I’d formed of what the Barchester Towers series would be about didn’t really appeal. A load of books set in a church? What’s really going to happen with a setting like that? It seemed a bit too safe and quiet.
Persuasion was completed when Jane Austen was already a successful writer, and was published shortly before her death, aged 41, in 1817. It’s her most romantic and best-loved novel, in the opinion of some, and her weakest and most mournful according to others. It has a reputation for dividing her fans into one of these love/hate camps.
TheBrontëSister 