What are your three favorite things about your book?

I am now reading the book Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin which was written in the early 1800s. Even though it was written almost two hundred years today, it is still read and enjoyed today. The romance between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth is one of my favorite things about this story and is probably why the book is still popular today. I do not usually enjoy romance novels but the “prejudice” and “pride” that Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth both have towards each other makes the story so intriguing. They are so similar both have a great deal of pride that gets in the way of letting themselves like the other. Both are also prejudice. Elizabeth thinks that Mr. Darcy is stuck up because of his wealth, and he dislikes her family because they are a bit forward. The tension is quite interesting. Another thing I really liked about this book is the dialog. It is so civil and proper. It is nothing like how we speak today, yet they still have ways of making snide remarks in witty ways and always in a proper manner. The third thing I find appealing about this book is the relationship between the father and mother. Although they squabble almost constantly and are very formal in the way they address each other and speak, you can tell that they love each other. Even though this story is nearly two centuries old, it is easy to relate to the attraction of two people from different social backgrounds, who really aren’t that different on the inside.

“Good literature substitutes for experience which we have not ourselves lived through.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

This quote relates to Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, by letting the reader experience what it must have been like to go from being a young girl living a carefree life to one living a life of fear and uncertainty. You glimpse what Jewish people in hiding went through during the Holocaust. Although hopefully we will never experience something like this in today’s world, it allows us to feel empathy for those people who did go through all the terrors of it and to see human side to the numbers of people who died. It also relates in another way to the book I’m reading, because throughout her diary Anne continues to write about different books she’s read and how books and studying are the only things that seem to make time pass in the Secret Annex. Anne realizes the escape that books can bring and find comfort in reading.

“Good literature substitutes for experience which we have not ourselves lived through.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I think Alexander Solzhemitsyn means that we can live and relate to experiences that we read in books. We can experience things through reading that we may never have the opportunity to do ourselves in real life, whether it be traveling to a faraway place or even an imaginary place, or being a part of the past or the future. Books can take us to different places, people, and even to a different time. They help us pass time and escape from the world around us. Good literature helps us to connect to the characters we read about.