Neither a bad end to 2014, nor a bad start to 2015, this was well worth the read. It wasn’t all I thought it would be, but considering it was a galley I got ages ago (2012 I think) and never read (Sorry!) I’m glad I finally read it. I think I’m going to spend a lot of time with Austen this year. A few friends and I are doing a Jane Austen book club and I have quite a bit of non-fiction I’m looking forward to reading about Austen and her life. I hope everyone sticks with me throughout! I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and received nothing in return for my honest response.
What worked best for this book was the selecting of 20 themes and then talking about them across Austen’s novels. I’ve read all of her novels at least once and a few of them much more. You can look at the chapter titles to see the themes, but the ones that stood out most to me where when Mullan spoke about Austen’s mastery of novels and groundbreaking skills as a writer.
“She did things with fiction that had never been done before. She did things with characterization, with dialogue, with English sentences, that had never been done before.”
Talk about a pertinent novel. Outdated is a hilarious commentary on internet dating and what it’s like when you’ve been out of the game for a long time. I received a copy of this from the publisher in return for my honest opinion.
If you’ve ever read this blog before you know I really love two things: books and Jane Austen. So when I found out Charlie Lovett, author of 
Atwood is an incredible writer and story teller and there’s really not much more that needs to be said, so when I saw her newest collection of short stories I knew I had to request it! I received a copy from the publisher, in return for my honest opinion:
Give me a book about a another book (missing, newly discovered, controversial, etc.) and I am happy. The writing could even be mediocre (this one was better than mediocre) and I can still deal with it!