I remember going with my dad to the public library every single weekend when I was little and getting a stack of books to read for the week. The only things that I didn’t read were books that I had already read. Nothing bothered me more than to read a book the second time through. For this reason, I never bought books until very recently. Why spend money buying books when I have no intention of ever looking at them again after one read-through?

One of the first books I ever bought was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; I loved it so much that it never fit the “only read 1 time through” mold. I have now read P&P more times than I can count. Still, through every read, no matter how many have already come before it, I long for Lizzie and Mr. Darcy to be together, and I flip the pages as fast as I can to find out, in great anticipation, when they do. I never get tired of the story.

Naturally, I am equally enamoured with the various big screen adaptations of the book. The lastest, with Keira Knightley, is beautiful, albeit a bit rushed. After all, how can one truly do a book justice in 120 minutes? Today, I just finished watching the BBC miniseries adaptation; it made me want to go back and read the book again, if at least to read the few pages of Mr. Darcy’s infamously rejected proposal and his subsequent letter. The miniseries even elevated Colin Firth to dashing/hot in my mind.

Watching P&P instantly put me in a great mood. The warm fuzzies I inevitably get after reading/watching P&P each time are indescribable. The story is so genuine, so touching, so sweet, so romantic. I am sure all girls have, at one point, wanted a handsome Mr. Darcy of her own. The misunderstandings in the story, followed by everything smoothing out in the end, give us all hope in the fateful turns of events in our own lives. They allow us to trust that things will all work out in the end :)