Today I'm Reading: Jane Austen's Emma

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Today I'm reading Jane Austen's Emma.  I've actually been reading it for a couple of weeks now and I'm really struggling to get in to it.  So far Emma strikes me as a coddled, somewhat empty headed, vain little girl.  The people around her seem to exist only to please her, and I'm bored.  This is the second Austen book I've read, and it took me a while to get into Pride and Prejudice, too.  I eventually loved it so I'm not giving up on Emma yet, but could use some input.  Does Emma ever develop any depth?  Do the people around her become more than props intended to appease her?  In short, does the story improve?  Should I cut my losses and move on to Neil Gaiman's new book Trigger Warning?

In Which Neil Gaiman Makes What I Mock Appealing

Coming February 2015
Preorder: Amazon
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It's no secret that if I ever stalk a celebrity it will be Neil Gaiman or J.K. Rowling.  Even their tweets make me happy so of course I anticipate their new books almost greedily.  This morning I learned Mr. Gaiman has a new short story collection coming soon to my bookshelf (and book sellers everywhere) with a very catchy title: Trigger Warning.  I first heard the term "trigger warning" in reference to college students being warned that books they were about to read may cause mental trauma.  My eyes rolled so far back, they're kinda stuck that way.  I am not a fan of coddling adults, which college age people generally are.  I do not believe we are such a damaged society that we require warnings about literary content - especially in college where we are supposed to be stretching ourselves and experiencing new (perhaps unpleasant) things in order to grow more fully into ourselves.  Leave it to the Neil Gaiman and his wonderfully unique brain to not only put first a sympathetic then skeptical and always humorous eye on the idea of a trigger warning, but to then take the idea and sell stories with it.  Stories that I must read, made all the more delicious because "I have been warned".

Read Gaiman's warning yourself in this USA Today exclusive excerpt.

Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean: Mr. Punch

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