No. 285 - Mr. Darcy's Diary

The other day in my Facebook status updates, I read that Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel was on sale in the Kindle store for $1.59. A few friends told me they liked it, so I bought it. Heck, I can't even go 10 miles in my truck without spending a $1.59.

The question though is: when will I read it? If I could read 50 books a year for the next 50 years, that amounts to only 2,500 books. When you look at it that way, you need to select each book very carefully since there's a finite number you can read before you expire. And you need to be able to walk away from bad ones before you waste too much time. I used to finish each book I started. But not anymore. The last two books I started I ended less than a quarter into them. One I may go back to later. The other, never.

Today in my Google Reader I learned about a free Kindle book called Mr. Darcy's Diary by Amanda Grange. This novel retells Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen from one of the main character's (Fitzwilliam Darcy's) point of view.

Having never read Pride and Prejudice, I also learned that, next to the opening line in Moby-Dick ("Call me Ishmael"), the first sentence in it is one of the most quoted in literature:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Speaking of Moby-Dick, reading it this year is one of my goals and I have yet to start it. I should probably get moving on that.

Anyway, Pride and Prejudice was also free in the Kindle store, so I downloading it along with Mr. Darcy's Diary. It would be cool to read those two books back-to-back.

The only question is: when?