The beginning of the year

Did the Australian Open start a week earlier this year? It's here already, coming to the end of the first week, and I could have sworn it ran for the last two weeks in January. Everybody's playing, with Serena dominating per usual. Hopefully, Federer is over his stomach ailment. Another Federer-Nadal final is only fitting to start the year off. Check out the tournament's amazingly comprehensive website.

In spite of? because of? my little rant over the contingent of established, American, male writers, I checked out Philip Roth's, Exit Ghost at the library today. The first paragraph drew me in, so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm in a reading funk again, unable to get into anything and not leaving enough time before sleep to get my usual half-hour in. We'll see if this novel will help revitalize my reading mojo.

But books have been on my mind. I've been thinking about rereading some of the novels from my English major days. My Norton edition of Jane Eyre has fallen apart, so I'll have to settle for a library copy. That opening page, where Jane is hiding behind the velvet curtains with a book of Audubon drawings, is still one of the most.arresting. introductions.ever. After going to Ilana Simons' reading from her work on Virginia Woolf, A Life of One's Own, I've been trying to select something of Woolf's to reread. Simons' favorite novel is To The Lighthouse, and I'm torn between Mrs. Dalloway and The Voyage Out. But I think I'm going with one of her later works -- maybe The Years or The Waves. And all you Anglophiles or Austenophiles no doubt are spending your Sunday evenings enjoying the brilliant BBC programming, a compilation of new and old television versions of all of Austen's work. You can never show Colin Firth striding out of his pond in Pride and Prejudice too many times! I think I'll go with Sense and Sensibility for my Austen fix. We can also look forward to new productions of Elizabeth Gaskell's works, starring Judi Dench. I want to tackle Cranford before it's broadcast, inspired by a query from Ms. Bananie who's considering it for vacation reading on her spring journey across the pond.

I finally settled on my calendar for this year! After mulling over English Gardens and Impressionist Paintings of the Sea, I chose The Reading Woman. Apt, don't you think?