Tag: Dorset

Books

Book 671: Dreaming of Mr. Darcy (Austen Addicts #2) – Victoria Connelly

Geoff W

Coming hot on the heels of A Weekend with Mr. Darcy, I of course had to read the follow up novel since the library just happened to have a digital download with no wait. What is that you’re whispering, “Self restraint?” Unfortunately, that’s not in my vocabulary—especially when it comes to books and explicitly when it comes to Jane Austen.

Book two of Connelly’s Austen Addicts series focused more on Persuasion than Pride and Prejudice, although there were plenty of Darcy references. This pretty much solidified that I’ll take my copy of Persuasion (where I’ll be when this posts).

Continue reading “Book 671: Dreaming of Mr. Darcy (Austen Addicts #2) – Victoria Connelly” →

Books

Book 334: Northanger Abbey (The Austen Project #2) – Val McDermid

Geoff W

The great part about The Austen Project, is I can read them in any order I want! Just like Austen’s original books 😀 I decided to read this one as we just read the original Northanger Abbey for Jane Austen Book Club and I loved it. The not so great part is reading this one made me wonder if I would have enjoyed Austen when she was originally published. I say this not as a commentary on the writer, whose skills were amazing and the ending had me in hysterics on the T, but as a commentary on holding up a mirror to young adult society today. The summary of the novel, might not have made me read this if I wasn’t aware of the original, but McDermid drew me in pretty quickly.

The whole premise of the project is around the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s novels contemporary authors are retelling her stories in the modern age. We’ve all seen modern adaptations of classics like “Clueless” (Emma) and “10 Things I Hate About You” (Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew), but this is more along the lines of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Boooo!) or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (YAY!!!!) in that the story is verbatim with minor changes. In this case it’s brought into the 21st century and takes place in Edinburgh instead of Bath.

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