Every single year I see some shiny book at Barnes and Noble that looks historical and Christmassy and I pounce on it, deluded by the glossy stuff on the cover, only to find that it will not actually make me an expert on Customs of Christmases Past. This years’ epic fail is A Jane Austen Christmas: Celebrating the Season of Romance, Ribbons, and Mistletoe by Carlo Devito. It has a great concept, but not much actual content. … Continue reading A Jane Austen Christmas by Carlo Devito →
It’s time for night number five of our Hanukkah celebration! Tonight is the fifth night of Hanukkah, and we’re all about Carrie’s favorites: history, fantasy, and reading all the things! I mean, everyone likes to read all the things, right? I mean, I do. Today’s giveaway prize is… Drumrolllllll please! A copy of the 200th Anniversary annotated edition of Emma by Jane Austen , edited by Juliette Wells, who was a podcast guest recently and talked a lot about the … Continue reading Smart Bitches Hanukkah Party, Part Five →
The Jane Austen Cookbook doesn’t look promising (it’s skinny) but it turned out to be a lot of fun. This book talks about cooking in a historical context, and then gives recipes in both their original forms and updated forms. Someone with an interest in history can enjoy the history, and someone who wants to actually cook the stuff can do so in a pretty accessible manner, although I doubt you’ll be whipping up Ragoo of … Continue reading The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye →
Like most Jane Austen fans, I focused my Austen attention on her six fully completed books. I really thought I had my Austen down, but then I thought I better look at some of her earlier writing and OMG HAVE YOU READ LADY SUSAN? This is a book that Austen sort of kind of finished – I mean, it looks kind of done but it reads like she planned to do some major edits and … Continue reading Lady Susan by Jane Austen →
Have you ever had the experience of enjoying a book as you were actually reading it and then five seconds after finishing it realizing that everything about the book was enraging? That was my experience with Alexander Smith McCall’s adaptation of Emma. I was so frustrated by the depiction of the character Emma that I kept flying into rages after I finished, but at the same time the side characters and the prose had sort of … Continue reading Emma by Alexander McCall Smith →
For Darkness Shows the Stars is a science fiction YA romance loosely based on Persuasion by Jane Austen. It’s not a very good version of Persuasion, and it’s not very good as romance, but it’s quite good as science fiction and I felt intense empathy for the heroine even though I frequently felt that her story was not the most interesting story in the book. For Darkness is about Elliot North, a Luddite. Many generations ago, … Continue reading For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund →
Miss Austen Regrets is a BBC movie about the last years of Jane Austen’s life. It’s beautifully cast, with wonderful dialogue, much of which comes straight from Jane Austen herself, and Olivia Williams is a fantastic Jane – very human, funny, smart, and fun loving. But the movie tries to do three things at once. It tries to show the consequences for a woman of Austen’s time being single, it tries to show Jane as a … Continue reading Movie Review: Miss Austen Regrets →
Oh, Cold Comfort Farm, where have you been all my life? This classic went completely past my radar and now that I’ve found it I’m actually surprised that it’s not dedicated to me, specifically. Cold Comfort Farm, published in 1932, pokes gentle fun at the sub-genre of novels that dwells on misery and melodrama on English farms. Early versions of this genre include the works of Thomas Hardy and of course Wuthering Heights by Emily … Continue reading Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons →
This review is from Tam B, who is brave and bold and unabashed about reading rock star Darcy romances. Tam B: When I saw this book on the SBTB sales advice, my thoughts mirrored the comments from Dread Pirate Rachel. She wrote: Fitzwilliam Darcy. Rock Star. W. T. F. I don’t know whether to be horrified or to buy this immediately. Probably both. I decided to risk the $1.99. This book opened with a prologue that … Continue reading Guest Review: Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star by Heather Rigaud →
Yesterday morning, folks on Twitter and elsewhere were discussing Daniel Handler’s racist jokes while hosting the National Book Awards following Jacqueline Woodson’s win in the YA category for Brown Girl Dreaming. David Perry posted a transcript and linked to the video clip from the awards ceremony, if you’d like to see it. Handler (who wrote the Series of Unfortunate Events series as Lemony Snicket) “joked” after Woodson’s acceptance speech that he’d learned recently that she was allergic to watermelon, … Continue reading Links: Brown Girl Dreaming, Duke’s Wagers, and More →
