Persuasion by Jane Austen
For someone with an English degree, I have read remarkably little of Austen's work. (Admittedly, I was on the composition rather than the lit track in my program, but still.) Then I rebelled against the "oooo Jane Austen" bug that hit most of my female friends a few years ago when the movies started coming out :) But my partner loves Austen, and she's been encouraging me to revisit her work, so I picked up Persuasion over the holiday break.
I had a hard time getting into the first part, partly because of Austen's writing and punctuation style and partly because it was a bit challenging to keep up with who was who given all the similar names. (My experience reading English history with its endless Henrys and Edwards did help here.) But the book picks up after Anne and her family take their trip to Lyme, and then it's actually something of a romp to the end. I'm definitely glad I revisited Austen, and I'll be picking up another of her novels when I get through the stack of library books I just got yesterday!
Next up (already started last night) is The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory
