Tag: Jane Austen

Books

Book 526: The Season – Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer

Geoff W

This might be the book to have pulled me out of my reading slump! Even if it’s not, I really enjoyed it as visible by my starting it at 8:30pm and finishing it the same night at 12:45am.

I stumbled across this book catching up on blog posts when I saw A.M.B.’s post Five Variations of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice on her blog The Misfortune of Knowing. We all know I love Jane, her birthday is on my calendar – seriously, and I have an entire page dedicated to her here: Austen(esque). So of course, I immediately went to put all of them on hold at my various libraries and this one was available immediately!!

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Books

Book 524: The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet – Kate Rorick and Rachel Kiley

Geoff W

Like the Damon Suede book I just finished, when I finished finally reading The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, I went to my local library to see if they had this. I didn’t necessarily want to read it, but the completionist in me was like there are only two books in the series so why not. So here I am almost two months later finally writing my response.

Let’s start with the bad: I honestly don’t think Austen would’ve wanted Lydia to be this likable or this redeemable. I get that Rorick and Kiley, and the writers of The Secret Diaries of Lizzie Bennet web series made creative choices, but Austen very rarely wrote redeemable characters unless they were the stars of her novels (i.e. Elizabeth and Darcy). Lydia’s comeuppance  was to spend her life with Wickham basically exiled from her family. That doesn’t happen in The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet and this isn’t a bad thing as it definitely makes this a lot more readable, it’s just not the same to me.

Now on to what worked great!

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Bookish Things

Bookish Things September 2017

Geoff W

Since I still haven’t sorted out what I want to do with Culture Corner, I’m sticking this here because it’s both cultural and bookish things. Last night they had a panel at the Boston Public Library titled “Beyond Mr. Darcy: New Markets in Romance” (BPL website).

The three authors Damon Suede, Farrah Rochan and Sarina Bowen were so personable and I just kept feeling like I want to be your friend. I think the best quote of the night was a quote Suede made about one of Bowen’s books he read recently:

“I wept quietly throughout the entire book while having a boner and laughing.”

The only truly disappointing thing about the talk was Suede not straying further from what he said on the podcast I discovered earlier this month: Authorized: Love and Romance. The host of the podcast, Faith Salie who I only know from Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, interviews romance authors about writing sex scenes and romance novels in general.

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Books

Book 517: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet – Bernie Su and Kate Rorick

Geoff W

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

That counts as a review right?

There’s no real reason to review this book – I mean I loved it, but I also loved the YouTube series – see below for a link GO WATCH IT NOW! There’s a link to the playlist at the end of this post. Seriously, forget my review go get sucked into the drama that is Pride and Prejudice reimagined as a master’s thesis project in the form of a vlog: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I mean it was the FIRST digital series to win an Emmy. AN EMMY people—that’s like legit.

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Updates

August Recap 2017

Geoff W

I’m old, time flies and it’s getting faster. We’re 2/3 of the way done with 2017 and I’m still like but what about 2016. I’m not ready for 2018, but it’s coming at me like a freight train so I may as well get ready for it right?

I finally (five months later) got most of my office at work decorated and of course it was bookish themed, see photo above. I have one last blank wall I’m going to put travel detail photos on but I need to get them printed.

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