The "Plus" Bit

Hello all, and back to the blog…

After taking a year plus off for other work opportunities, family responsibilities draw me back home and set me down at the computer.

When I read early in 2013 that this year marks the 200 anniversary of the publishing of Pride and Prejudice the book nerd in me rose up and smelled a challenge.  I searched the internet and read blogs suggesting celebrating the anniversary by not only reading Jane Austen’s works, but also commentaries about her writing, listening to audio books, even traveling to sites where she wrote and lived! Feeling overwhelmed, I was tempted to push away from the computer and go back to folding the laundry.

But then I stopped…This blog is called “One Hundred Books Plus”, and I cannot let the “Plus” part of the blog title hang neglected. New positions and life situations call me to readjust my focus. Why could we not have our own scaled-down version of our own Jane Austen challenge in our little gathering?

I set as a personal goal to read all of Jane Austen’s works this year. They are: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey.

Would you like to join me? Of course, for research and the sake of comparison, I also will be watching at least one movie adaptation of each of these books (can’t get enough of Mr. Darcy striding across the moors in that puffy shirt!).  

I’m starting with Mansfield Park. For those of us who are checkbook challenged you can download this for free to Kindle or pop by your local library. I have found three Mansfield Park films: one mini series on Netflix and two on You Tube.

Let’s plan to meet with a favorite beverage and our thoughts, rants and raves the end of March.

Have fun!

And don’t worry, we’ll pick back up with the 100 Books List very soon!

The First

http://home.planet.nl/~helle004

Book worm, (sort of) well-read, literate, word nerd…yes, I am. All of the above.  So when a list came across my Facebook status updates called “BBC Books, Share” I latched on immediately. According to the list, the BBC published a list of the Top 100 Books, The Big Read, and a Facebooker modified the list, posting in to their notes and sharing the list with their friends. The list challenges readers to mark the books they have read and those they intend to read.

I was surprised to tally up my score and discover I had only read 28 of the Top 100! The challenge was on. I printed the list, shoved it in my purse, and headed to the library.

After reading several more books on the list (I am now up to close to 40), I posted a comment about one of the books on the Facebook list on my status update. Again, I was surprised at the discussion that followed. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to continue this discussion?”

A few weeks later, this blog was born. My opinion about blogs generally is very low; so much traffic on the web is useless at best, self-centered at worst. All those internet diaries bore me. Who really wants to use their precious time reading the dull details of my life?

But, what if we could have a discussion about something meaningful? Something that expands our worldview, increases brain activity, and gives us a productive, low fat escape all that the same time?

Would you like to join me? I would love to see which books you have read from the Facebook Top 100. I would love even more to hear your opinion of them. Which have you read? Which did you love? Which did you leave at the bottom of the pile by your bedside table?