Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy--8/10

Ah, Tess. I have such fond memories attached to this book. I'm going to be honest, normally literature from this time period takes me a little longer to read--not because I'm less interested, but just because the writing takes longer to wade through. But for some reason, Tess goes really quickly for me, and this time I read it in only a few days.

In case you don't know, Thomas Hardy writes sad stuff. You should probably be aware of that going in. But if you have never read Tess of the d'Urbervilles, I highly recommend that you do; it's a classic, and it's beautiful. It's about a young girl named Tess, whose father finds out at the beginning of the book that he is one of the last descendants of a rich and powerful old family. Since he's a lazy bum anyway, this gives him an excuse to do even less work, and he starts spending all his time finding ways to get that family name to work for him. Naturally this responsibility falls on Tess, the only real adult in her family, and things only get more complicated from there.

It's funny that I decided to reread this just now, because only a day or two after I started, I came across this picture in my scanning and uploading craze. It's from a dirtbiking/camping trip a few years ago, and I love it because how many times do you get a candid picture of yourself reading a book where you can tell what the book is? The answer is not many, and this one makes me happy.