Now, I’m SURE Jane Eyre was required reading in high school, but for the life of me, I can’t recall reading it. More likely, I bought the Cliff Notes for the required book report that always followed. As a matter of fact – as somewhat of a writer myself, and I am highly ashamed to admit this – but I don’t recall reading a lot of the Great American Novels, such as Wuthering Heights, The Grapes of Wrath, David Copperfield, or even The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, just to name a few. It’s not that I didn’t LIKE to read as a teenager, on the contrary, I LOVED reading if it was a Harlequin romance novel or the latest issue of Teen magazine! But when a high school English teacher FORCED you to read something – especially something that you were required to write a book report on later – your only objective was to find the easiest and quickest way to make the best mark, and back then, that was through Cliff Notes – a series of study guides that gave a quick, but thorough outline and run down of almost every famous novel written. In high school, Cliff Notes were as sought out after as the captain of the football team, and I’m sure even HE used them to pass English lit class! Anyway, I digress…

I made myself comfortable on my bed, covered my bare feet with the velour blanket at the foot of the bed, and propped myself up on the king-sized pillows behind me. Outside my bedroom window, the skies were a deeper gray, and the rain had turned into a light, but steady downpour. My husband was outside working on his four-wheeler under the shelter, with our dog by his side. With the weather outside dismal and rainy, and the house inside peaceful and quiet, it seemed I had made the right decision to put off my gardening and indulge in some Sunday afternoon reading.

I peeled back the pages of the worn paperback copy of Jane Eyre I had purchased at the thrift store and read the beginning Notes and Preface. I was already familiar with Brontë as a writer and knew that Jane Eyre was set in the Victoria age, so I expected the writing to be very descriptive and somewhat complex. As I am prone to being a fast reader, I found myself having to read a bit slower, sometimes even re-reading sentences and paragraphs to fully understand the meaning of some of the terms used from that era of writing. But it wasn’t long before I was deeply engrossed in the storyline and turning the pages a bit faster. And although even after an hour of reading, I’d barely scratched the surface of this famed novel, I already realized how much I missed out on by not reading it when it was required reading in high school. In fact, I’m making it my mission this summer to go back and read ALL (well, most anyway) those Great American Novels that I didn’t read when I was younger – rainy weather permitting, of course! In addition, I’ve already got a mini library of famous and some even unheard-of novels to fill in the gaps!

Some people like to read while sunning by the seashore, or in a cozy cabin in the mountains. Others prefer reading late at night after everyone else has gone to bed. Still others can drown out the city noise around them and read sitting on a park bench or at a quaint sidewalk café. For me, rainy afternoons are meant for either one of two things – sleeping or reading. Today, I think was the perfect day for the latter. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll get back to my reading….