Awesome Book Club: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

I hate to read books. I really do. It's not that I don't like or appreciate books; in fact, I love them. I love to analyze them and talk about them and dissect them (and look at them and smell them). I just hate the physical act of reading. Reading induces narcolepsy. My disdain for the act of reading is particularly cumbersome given my profession.

I wish that I enjoyed reading books. I just don't. I'm so jealous of Matt when I glance over at his nightstand and see the 6-ft. high stack of books he's read that week. Then I look over at mine only to see a Real Simple and Entertainment Weekly that I have yet to finish. It's pathetic, really.

I blame The Grapes of Wrath. When I was a junior in high school, I bought myself a copy, believing that an educated English girl (English like someone who likes to diagram sentences, not like someone who eats fish and chips) would need to have read the book. I tried and tried and tried to get through it, but every time I would start reading, I would slip into a deep slumber. We're talking near-death here. It was during this time that I conditioned my body to associate reading with sleeping. (I also have a severe case of movie narcolepsy which nearly caused Matt to break up with me.)

That damned Faulkner class in college didn't help, either. Even when I would steal Paxton's narcolepsy drugs I couldn't do it.

But the worst? Jane Austen. Smarmy Jane Austen. I hate that bitch. In high school Maureen and I lobbied one of our teachers to allow us do an independent study: literature to film. The teacher finally caved, but with one condition, that we read a Jane Austen novel. Ugh. So I tried for weeks to get through Emma without 1.) falling asleep and 2.) vomiting, but I never actually finished it. BUT, I did watch Clueless--like 15 times.

Years later I had to read Pride and Prejudice. Again I tried and tried, but couldn't stomach it. I know she's brilliant and cutting edge and blah blah blah, but, at the ripe old age of 19, I wrote off Jane Austen for good.

Then one of my friends, Tanya's younger sister Jenna, started a book club on Facebook, Awesome Book Club. (You could probably search for it and join if you so chose.) Because I enjoy Jenna's taste in literature (for example, the Sloppy Firsts series), I thought, "Sure, why not?" I thought it just might be the thing to get me reading.

This month's book is Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters. Maybe, just maybe, sea monsters will liven up the story enough for me not to slip into a coma.


I read these lines on page 1:

"Her death came as a surprise. . .she was beating laundry upon a rock that revealed itself to be the camouflaged exoskeleton of an overgrown crustacean, a striated hermit crab the size of a German shepherd. The enraged creature affixed itself to her face with a predictably unfortunate effect."

I decided then and there that Mr. Winters had found a way to make me appreciate Ms. Austen.

It's fantastic!

"Alas! A quarter mile off the coast of Sussex, Mr. Dashwood was eaten by a hammerhead shark."

And the illustrations are just as fun! Talk about old school.

Excited, armed with a renewed love for reading, I threw myself into the book--for four pages.

And then I slept for 3 hours.