How Moving House Has Increased My Reading And Measuring Male Maturity Through Jane Austin

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

There is a twilight zone stage that me and my family are living in at the moment. Preparing for the move though it will be a number of weeks ahead so that a lot of things have been boxed, crated, charity shopped or just thrown away at the local tip. A consequence of which is that circumstances throw themselves up with unexpected results.

It's five o'clock this (Tuesday) morning. Exactly one hour before I wanted to get up. Nothing to watch on TV either recorded or live (which seem to be plastered with people trying to sell you cooking gadgets you'll rarely use, cleaning gadgets you'll rarely use or get into some rigorous training DVDs that I'm sure will lead me to a six pack and heart failure The DVD/discs are crated, as are the paper books. Nothing else to do for that hour than read on my Kindle (other e readers are available).

Before I wouldn't have considered reading at this hour, certainly not a paper book, as it's not comfortable for my eyes. But given the back light there's no problem here.

So Amazon (and the companies that sell the other e readers that are available) there's a whole new market of people to flog your wares to. Those who want to read but can't get at their paper books....you're welcome....a free gift voucher would suffice.

The book I finished this morning was H G Wells' 1899 novel When The Sleeper Awakes. The first thing to say about this is that the only way you can read it is by suspending your disbelief to such a level you'll consider when finishing taking up high wire lessons. The plot can only be described as bonkers. Starting from the fact that we have to believe that not only can a man survive two hundred years in a trance but doesn't age either!

The other thing you need to abandon when reading the book is the thought that in essence H G Wells is rehashing the plot from the earlier novel  The Time Machine (Victorian gent in the future having to deal with the society there).

It is readable....just. It's also in parts racist. The "N" word was mentioned twice. This was both unexpected and unwelcome.

Next I read Emile Zola's short story The Flood (I know, never read him before and he comes into my life twice in a week). I won't go into the plot other than what's obvious from the title. What I will say is that if you're not moved after having read this you've a heart of stone and probably a member of UKIP.

And so to the current book I'm reading. Emma by Jane Austen. It's the first Austen book I've ever read (though some paper books are in the great crated unread.

It's funny how my attitude to Austen has changed even though I've never read her work before. As a child soon to be a teenager I rejected her because she was "just for girls". As a teenager/twenties I wouldn't read her because she seemed to be the thinking woman's Mills and Boon.

(As an aside I wouldn't condemn my past self for that view. I've written before how I believe that some female writers would have a far greater male readership if the covers didn't give men the wrong impression about their work. Marian Keyes is a recent example, though at the time Georgette Heyer and Norah Lofts were rejected by me exactly because their covers reminded me of Mills and Boon)

In my thirties and forties I had acknowledged that she was worth reading but life and other books always seemed to come before her. Now, in the age of fifty three, being I suspect the only man outside of publishing who has read a Georgette Heyer novel first Jane Austen has arrived in my life.

Hope I like it.

Until the next time.