Books (re-)read, week of 10-25-11

I normally read three books per week, but lately it's been a stretch to reach two. Partly that's because I've been getting halfway through books but not finishing them--I'll decide around p. 200 that I know exactly where this is going, and neither the writing nor the characters engage me sufficiently that I want to follow their all-too-predictable journey. Contrariwise, I've been doing a lot of re-reading old favorites. You know, where I really know exactly where this is going, but I love the characters and/or the writing so much that I'm happy to read it again and again, and since I already know how it turns out, I can just skip around and read my favorite parts.

So, last week I did a skim-for-favorite bits re-read of Judith Merkle Riley's Margaret of Ashbury trilogy (A Vision of Light, In Pursuit of the Green Lion, and The Water Devil). They're historical fiction set in 14th century England and France, leavened with a heavy dose of supernatural/fantasy elements, and Margaret's relationship with Gregory/Gilbert is one of my favorite love stories.

I'm also re-reading Persuasion, since there's no such thing as too much Jane Austen.

So what did I finish that was actually new to me? Just A Jane Austen Education, in which William Deresiewicz details how Jane Austen's works changed his life as a graduate student in English literature. It's a well-written and engaging memoir, though my favorite man-discovers-Jane-Austen tale remains Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog posts about Jane Awesome.