Monday...

Today is the first day of my actual summer... ok, this is a transitional week, as there are two My U events and I have one set of grades to post today.

But the main point is: onto the summer schedule!

Which basically means spending time every day writing. Four hours in the a.m., and four hours in the p.m. I am all about product, baby, not process, which will be messy and rough.

Summer is also about getting my house in order, literally -- getting completely out of the Old Apartment and donating/selling/trashing the stuff I no longer use or want and getting completely into my New Apartment, hanging pictures and arranging the several closets. I find myself already resenting the extra stuff I have and the lose of lovely open spaces of "empty" rooms. Oh, well. Once I finish, everything will be still spacious and uncluttered--or so I plan. Target date: 5.25.11.

I have a lot of books to read to get the 50 done this year--oh, what a problem! I am currently working on Rebecca Skloot's study, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as an audiobook and Van Gogh's letters with his brother, Dear Theo, as a book-book.

I also have to take care of the details for my trip to Boston, DC, and home, visiting family and friends while giving a paper at a conference (more about the paper later: fascinating topic, just by accident!).

This week, just the start-up is enough. By next week, I hope to have hit my stride completely.

The flowers are from my time in Oxford in 2008, from the Botanical Gardens. I recommend this stop when you are in that lovely town.

50/2011: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park was the final Jane Austen I had to read: it was on my 50/2011 list of books (see sidebar) and I completed it this week.

As someone who loves Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility (the novels before the films) and who has been to the Jane Austen Center in Bath, I would consider myself a fan of the writer and her style but not a worshipper at the altar of Jane.

I found Mansfield Park in some ways lighter weight than the others, with less wit and humor. This has more to do with the way in which Austen fashions her main character, Fanny, as a more traditional "helpless" female whose strength comes from her inner moral compass. Fanny, unlike the Bennet sisters, is removed from the bosom of her family (which we discover late in the novel was a very good decision) and placed with her wealthy aunt's family as a young girl; she grows up in this household as "the poor relative" who is the object of charity and too often turned into the unpaid servant "for her own good."

Like other Austen heroines, Fanny must negotiate ungrateful relatives, unwanted suitors, and hold out for what never seems possible: that the one she loves will return her love, despite everything. And that fate will willingly bring them together, in the end.

As a social commentary on class and gender, Mansfield Park is less charming than P&P or S&S. Not less revealing or true, however, and the novel's charm comes with the spectrum of folly committed by Fanny's cousins, their local acquaintances, and friends, while Fanny, slowly but steadily, comes to be the center of right behavior in the novel. Little do we imagine that the fearful little girl we meet initially will become the still shy but clear-headed young woman who refuses to be fooled or seduced by a handsome face or charming manner with no substance behind it. 

Of course, I think the recent films of Austen's films has not served her work particularly well, in that the films have framed her stories as "romances" or "Gothic" (this sounds a bit like my review of the recent Jane Eyre film, yeah?) -- no surprise that I like the BBC six-episode version of P&P and the Emma Thompson film of S&S better than the Keira Knightly version.

What I love about Austen's novels is that with all their inherent charm, wit, and romance, their underlying layers of family dysfunction and loyalty, envy and betrayal, class and gender, and marriage as a social, political, and personal event are compassionate, wickedly intelligent, and unflinching. She is also a damn good writer who hooks you into caring about her characters' fates while holding steady on what good, civilized behavior is--interactive behavior which should be practiced daily by people in society, meaning everyone but hermits--and the ways in which we should treat others and conduct ourselves. The new book Jane Austen Education is by another person who surprised himself by finding Austen a kind of life guide... without being sappy about it.

Austen in neither Candace Bushnell nor Emily Griffin: she writes about women but doesn't do "chick lit." Which is good, for me.

Weekly Frugality Report

Not too bad.

Downside: I managed to acquire another ticket, but one that goes away once I show up at court with confirmation of my 2011 inspection (tomorrow's to do list).

Upside: spent $108.79 at drugstore and grocery store; saved $30.28 on coupons and sale items.

Yesterday, I ate lunch with one friend and paid (she misplaced her debit card) and had dinner with another (this time I mislaid my card, but had a $20, which paid for 2/3 of my share). This is officially week two of the month, and I am admittedly behind. However, I still have a pantry full of stuff, a freezer full of stuff, and a fridge full of slowly aging stuff.

Plus, I may have come up with a way to salvage my summer class, I've started to put my 2010 taxes in order for Tax Man visit, and consignment and vintage visits are on my calendar for this week... Hopefully that will translate into money in my pocket. Whoo-hoo!

Update: Just "bought" 6 new books on Audible.com with my 6 credits (I pay monthly and earn 1 credit per month). I also "earned" $10 in credit for downloading 4 or more books... which means I can "buy" 2 $4.50 titles. Three books are on my "to read" list for 2011, and 3 more are catch-up titles in the J.D.Robb series. In any case, lots of music for biking and treadmill/gym time.

I've also earned a few more dollars at eBates this week, by buying online; this is a great site to save even more when buying frugally online (like at drugstore.com!).

My Favorite Things -- my new Nook

Stupid name, great product!

This is the Barnes & Noble e-reader, which I asked for and got for Christmas. Oh, a cute red cover which really does make it look like a book and protects the screen.
I really did fight the e-reader for a while. But... de-cluttering got me. Of my 50 titles for 2011, about 20% can be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg. I can also now sell my classic paperback titles, freeing up several shelves in my living room. I cna also access free titles from Barnes & Noble, as well as from other sources. I'll be looking into e-books from other soruces as well; mostly, they cost somewhere between hardcover and paperback costs, which seems ridiculous. I look forward to e-books reaching their real costs (no paper, no type, no printing/shipping/storage... so why more than a paperback?).

I am also of the belief that soon/someday academic publishers will wake up and utilize e-publishing more and more--in fact replacing "real" books with virtual e-ones. Or at least that would be the smart thing for academic publishers--who are bleeding money for books no one can afford--to do.

But... I love it!

When I travel, I always load a bag full of books and/or buy lots of books while I am away (oh, yeah, Oxford bookstores LOVE me!). This will enable me to a/ load up on ebooks before I leave and b/ travel without backache.

My only caveat: the print is dark gray on light gray. Eyestrain, much? Yes. I would love to have the option to make it more/black/white contrasted for reading ease. But that's small... love, love, love the Nook.

50 Books

This year my challenge is to read 50 books outside my favorite genres, including re-reading favorites from years past. I’m thinking of the following as a list of suggestions, as well as books I have piled up in my house waiting to be read. These books are not in any particular order, and won’t be read in the exact order below, but around and about. A number of them are books I've had in my "to read" pile for some time, and some are simply books I've wanted to read or re-read.
1. More than Love Letters by Rosie Thornton
2. Paradiso by Dante Aligheri
3. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
4. Life and Death of Anne Boleyn by E.W. Ives
5. Shelley by Ann Wroe
6. The Sentry by Robert Crais
7. The First Man by Robert Crais
8. South of Beach by Pat Conroy
9. Just Kids by Patti Smith
10. Tinkers by Paul Harding
11. The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne
12. The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
13. Balzac by Graham Robb
14. Paris, Capitol of Modernity by David Harvey
15. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
16. The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
17. The Collaborative Habit by Twyla Tharp
18. Dear Theo by Vincent Van Gogh
19. Orientalism by Edward Said
20. Rhythm in Drama by Kathleen George
21. Living the Writer’s Life by Eric Maisel
22. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
23. Too Nice for Your Own Good by Duke Robinson
24. Getting Things Done by David Allen
25. Deep Writing by Eric Maisel
26. Feel the Fear and Do it Anyways by Susan Jeffers
27. Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith
28. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
29. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
30. Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
31. Body Clutter
32. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
33. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
34. Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
35. The Anthologist by Nicholas Baker
36. The Longest Silence by Thomas McGuane
37. Chez Panisse by Alice Waters
38. An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David
39. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
40. The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
41. The Road to Monticello by Kevin J. Hayes
42. Strapless by Deborah Davis
43. The Medici by Paul Strathern
44. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
45. Touchstone by Laurie King
46. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
47. The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
48. Illuminations by Walter Benjamin
49. Montmartre and the Making of Culture by Gabriel Weissberg
50. On Photography by Susan Sontag

And on we go.