Saving the best part

When I started packing to move, I decided to reread some of the books that I find so important to keep. In general I do NOT like rereading books I like. I am afraid I will not like them the second time around. This happened with Ahab's Wife: or, the Star-Gazer by by Sena Jeter Naslund. The first time around, I loved that there were so many words I learned. The second time around, I thought it was really slow. Maybe third time is a charm?

Anyway, that is not the book I started reading. I am SOOOOO close to finishing Persuasion by Jane Austen. And really, can you read a Jane Austen novel too many times? I would argue you could not.

Even though the following line is not about the heroine, it is right at the beginning and made me glad I had started reading it when I did, because really it is about me.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.

I am in the middle of the penultimate chapter. (I just wanted to use a big word after thinking about Ahab's Wife.) It is against my reading habits to stop in the middle of a chapter unless there is a break in paragraphs, and there is not where I stopped last night. Every night when I go to read more, I do not want to finish it because I know the ending is good and I want to save it.

This is not the case with a book I have never read that has my attention. I have definitely stayed up "just a little longer" to read more and then looked at the clock at 3:30 a.m. when I finished the book.

I might finish Persuasion tonight and hope that I can keep that happy-ending feeling for a couple of days. (Taken out of context, that statement is highly inappropriate, but you know what I mean.)