Happy birthday, Jane Austen!

Jane Austen was born 245 years ago today. She didn't live very long, tragically, but she did manage to leave us with some very good books to read. If you haven't already done so, I urge you to read one. If you're like me, you'll love it. Then you'll read another. And then another. Sadly, you'll soon reach the day when there aren't any more. But you'll still be happier having read them.

And you can always go back and read them again! I treated myself to these fancy hardbacks at some point, but you can always find them in the library or at your favorite book store. The text itself is in the public domain, so you can download it from Project Gutenberg for free. (You can read the EPUB versions in Emacs!)

If you prefer to have them read to you, there are free downloads available at LibriVox. In particular, Elizabeth Klett has a beautiful reading voice and has recorded five of the novels as well as participated in a dramatic reading of the sixth (she was both the narrator and one of the major characters). I sometimes listen to these while I'm knitting.