Tag: Napoleonic Wars

Books

Book 677: Persuasion – Jane Austen

Geoff W

Book cover of Persuasion with Amazon Affiliate link.Apparently I revisit Jane Austen’s Persuasion (May 2015 response) every 5-6 years. Last time I read it was when some friends and I did a Jane Austen Book Club back in 2015.

I decided to re-read it again while on vacation after reading the Austen Addicts trilogy (A Weekend with Mr. Darcy, Dreaming of Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy Forever) by Virginia Connelly, who by all measures appears to be slightly obsessed with it—or at least co-obsessed with it and Pride and Prejudice. The further I read in Connelly’s trilogy the more I wanted to go back and read the originals again. I guess that’s a sign of a good referential nod right?

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Books

Book 587: Longbourn – Jo Baker

Geoff W

I can’t believe I’ve had this on my shelf for as long as I have. It’s been almost TWO YEARS since I bought it. TWO YEARS! I’m not sure I would go so far as to say this is THE pinnacle of Jane Austen fan-fiction, but it’s pretty close.

I say this for a couple of reasons the primary being that Baker didn’t deviate too far from Austen’s characters, she stayed true to them and only played with the background characters (they’re less than minor) and filled in their back stories. The secondary reason I say this is because it received reviews in the major publications and was fairly mainstream for Austen fan-fiction/inspired fiction. I mean sure you’ve got the major adaptations like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless, but those are both modern adaptations.

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Books

Book 401: Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Geoff W

Austen, Jane - Pride & PrejudiceIt will come as no surprise that this is the first book to reach three re-reads since I started The Oddness of Moving Things. I read it twice in 2013, January and August, in honor of its 200th publication date.

What WILL come as a surprise is that I was supposed to read this for our final installment of Jane Austen Book Group and I didn’t! Everything was so busy and I somehow got so flustered that I didn’t read it in time. Thankfully, I know the story so well and had read the Marvel Illustrated version earlier this year, I was capable of discussing it without too much effort. I did know that as soon as I finished trudging through The Dante Club I had to get this re-read to feel as if I’d completed our Jane Austen Book Club for the year! And it’s a great refresher before I dive right into Prejudice & Pride a “gender-bendy twist” on the original by Lynn Messina that comes out December 15th.

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Book Group, Books

Book 382: Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

Geoff W

Austen, Jane - Sense and SensibilityFor our fifth installment of Jane Austen Book Club we read Sense and Sensibility (S&S). Not only is this book the penultimate book of this year’s book group, it is my last Austen re-read for the Classics Club! That makes it my 42 Classics Club book and I’m glad to still be slowly chipping away. Goodreads reminds me I’m 29 books behind schedule from my original Classics Club start date, but I abandoned the five-year plan ages ago. I figured I should enjoy the Classics when I want to enjoy them and not force myself to meet some arbitrary time limit.

Like all of Austen, I’m confused why I haven’t re-read this in so long. Obviously, there are so many other books to read, but it went by so fast and the story is just so great that I really should make an effort to re-read more than just Pride and Prejudice (P&P) every so often!

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Books

Book 381: Northanger Abbey (Marvel Illustrated) – Nancy Butler & Janet Lee

Geoff W

Butler, Nancy, Jane Austen and Janet Lee - Northanger AbbeyI’m so glad I’m on Austen overload this year. I’m not really sure what I do on the years I don’t read this much Austen. Does that actually happen? I should start tracking my Austen reads in addition to everything else I track.

This is the second of the Marvel Illustrated Jane Austen series and I have to say I’m impressed so far. Butler knows how to reduce down the stories to their key elements without losing any of the wit and humor Austen infuses into her work. I preferred the illustration style of Hugo Petrus from Pride & Prejudice versus Janet Lee of Northanger Abbey. Which is interesting because I know it took me a while to adjust to that style, maybe when I read Emma, also illustrated by Lee, I won’t have as many issues. All of this being said, I really enjoyed this adaptation.

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