Midlife Sarah

After four years of a reading Renaissance, December saw an abrupt drop off. I guess, in hindsight, it's been coming on for a few months, but in December there was a dramatic switch in focus that resulted in my reading only two (mediocre) books. January is going similarly, prompting me to wonder if my current season of reading warrants a book blog at all. I think the other areas of life that I am focusing on now will continue to take precedence over the stacks of books on my TBR, and I'm not sure that blogging is worth the time it takes. On the other hand, it's good for me to regularly stop and synthesize my ponderings. So maybe I'll keep it up.  For December, however, I'm just going to list the books and my rating. I don't think I have much in the way of insight for either of them.  The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon Our book club choice for December. My rating: 3/5 Wintering, by Katherine May My rating: 3/5  

  Just a post to review November reading. I kind of fell off the blogging wagon. Not sure if I'm going to keep it up, but for some reason I think that later I'll be happy to have my book reviews tucked away somewhere. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Fall is the perfect time of year to cozy up with this novel. This November marked my third fall in a row reading Jane Eyre, and it was just wonderful. This time I found myself thinking more about the motivations and stories of the less-liked characters. How did Brocklehurst justify his treatment of the students of Lowood School? What caused St. John to believe that his God-given mandate was also everyone else's? What would I have done in Mr. Rochester's impossible situation?  I don't know why my mind focused on these things, but reading from a different perspective really did open the story in a new way. Because--as I usually find when I try to understand the "bad guys" of life and literature--we've all go...