"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment." - Jane Austen

For our 11th grade summer reading, two of the books we were assigned to read were Beowulf and Pride & Prejudice.

Well my classmates were not shy in voicing their opinions, or those they had heard through the grapevine. Consensus was, Beowulf was great and P&P was bo-riiiing.

Poor Jane Austen, how was I to know that my classmates were bereft of any good sense or taste?

All things considered, I had to prepare myself for anything. Since I was going on a month long trip with my parents, I threw in my Stony Brook School provided paperbacks along with the saving grace of any lazy high-schooler: Cliffnotes. I wasn't going to waste my time reading P&P if I didn't like it after the first 50 pages!

I know, I know, my dedication to my studies must just revolutionize your world.

Well after lugging my books and bathing suits on the 12 hour flight to Greece, I was ready to hunker down and make my way down the summer reading check-list, one excruciating page at a time.

Do you think that I read P&P first, you know, to get the pain over with?? NOPE! I decided to leave it for last, avoiding Austen at all costs. Finally, when I had no where else to go, and no other book to read, I settled into my beach chair, careful not to get any suntan lotion on my beloved Cliffnotes and began:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Ok, I can dig that, whatever, this book was written in the late 1700s, published in 1813. This book is famous for its first sentence, but that isn't where Jane hooked me.

"However, little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

This woman is hilarious. Any rich and single man was considered "rightful property to some one or other of their daughters"? Hold on, there were gold diggers even in the 1800s????? That is priceless.

This is probably around the time that I decided Jane Austen was to be my best friend.

Needless to say, it took me one afternoon to read the whole thing, including Cliffnotes (just in case I missed anything).

Ever since then, I have been unable to quell my infatuation with anything Austen. From Pride & Prejudice to Persuasion I have left no Austen page unturned. I took a Jane Austen class in college, I've seen almost every movie adaptation and if I see any fiction novel that has "Jane" or "Austen" in the title, chances are I have read it or plan on reading it.

Some may say this is unhealthy, but really? I don't drink coffee, I don't smoke cigarettes....should I really be ashamed of this vice? Perhaps you could even call it a virtue.......