Don't Mess With My Jane Austen!

Jessica Crispin from Bookslut.com gives her opinion on must-read books - books that are currently on the hot lists or on the list of classics that make up our literary heritage. Jessica is not into lists. Neither am I. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid books on the Oprah book list until they are so passé that they become a matter of choice again. I, and apparently Jessica, refuse to read the next literary Flavor of the Month simply because someone else has deemed it to be so.

As I continued to read the article I clucked in contented agreement, until I ran across this passage:

Of course there is no such thing as a must-read book. Maybe you should read some Tolstoy, but then again maybe not, if overly long descriptions of fields don’t really do anything for you, or if you have some problems with the whole woman-has-a-desire-and-so-must-die thing. Maybe you should check out some Jane Austen, but then again, Jane Austen is pretty boring and the whole marriage-as-life thing, I mean who really cares...

Boring? BORING?!! Don't mess with my Jane, Jessica. That's all I have to say.