Happy Jane Austen's 230th birthday everyone. :)

My dad, who HATES all things British (or at least he says he does to spite me and my mother, who is a fellow anglophile,) went to Pride and Prejudice under duress with my mom a few days ago. He called me right after the film to say he loved the film and the story and the locations. Also, he now has a mini-crush on KK and one on Pemberley (he really loved those houses.) I can't figure out when the pod people grabbed him exactly, as he has offered to go see it again with me when I am home for Christmas!! I am not complaining about this; it just is entirely unexpected.

I learned today from the Writers' Almanac on NPR that after World War I, they used to read Jane Austen's books to English soldiers recovering from shell shock. Doctors discovered that the books helped the soldiers to find a way to reconnect to the world that they had known before the war. I wish that someone had passed that information on to Septimus Smith in Mrs. Dalloway before things got so bad.