Austen

[snugglekitty]

What's a good second Jane Austen book to read?

I read Pride and Prejudice first.

I picked up some beach reading for our trip to Maine. I suspect that Tanner on Ice won't even make it to the beach. Lawrence Block, how I love your funny mysteries!

Comments

[watercolorblue.livejournal.com]

I like Sense And Sensibility.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

If you read "Sense and Sensibility," it helps to know that Austen uses the word "sensible" in a way that's quite unfamiliar to modern readers. It takes a while for most readers to figure out just what she means by this word, since her meaning is very different from current usage.

Cory, gonna shut up about Austen now :-)

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I loved "Emma." But maybe that's because my personality can resemble Emma's, so the lessons she learns in that book are the same as ones that I needed to learn. Or maybe it's just a great book. :-)

The Tanner books are great fun, and the Burglar ones are good, too. I don't like Block's other books as much.

Have you read the Aunt Dimity books by Nancy Atherton? They're the coziest of all cozy mysteries, and they're great for when you want something really light or when the world's nastiness is getting you down and you need a dose of sweetness. It helps to read the series in order; start with "Aunt Dimity's Death." My local librarian couldn't believe that I read both Laurell K. Hamilton AND Aunt Dimity. The tone is worlds apart. :-)

Have fun in Maine!

Cory

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

I suggest Sense & Sensibility or Persuasion (my personal favorite). Mansfield Park is good, also, but the other two are better; Northhanger Abbey is fun primarily if you've read a lot of 18th century Gothic fiction (which I did, to prep for NA, because I was warned to by an English prof).

No offense to your other friend who commented, but Emma is my least favorite Austen novel. Nothing happens for a good 200 pages straight, so I wouldn't recommend it for beach reading. It's a book worth reading if you like Austen, but it's not a book I'll read again. P&P, S&S, and Persuasion, on the other hand, are books I can pick up and turn to a random page and be instantly sucked back into the story.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I guess Lady_Anemone will just have to read ALL of Jane Austen and tell us what she likes best. :-)

I don't think there are any BAD Austen books, so she can just pick one at random and have a good time. Except, as you rightly note, for "Northanger Abbey," which is a spoof of old novels and so is much more fun if you're familiar with what it's spoofing.

It's nice to know that there are other Austen readers out there, even if we disagree on which of her books we like best.

Cory

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

Yes, reading ALL of Austen is a project we can agree on!

I was (unwillingly!) introduced to Austen my senior year in college--there was a prof I liked whom I'd never had a class with, and her fall elective conflicted with something I needed, so I had to take her spring elective, which was Jane Austen and Film. We read S&S, P&P, and Emma, and watched the major corresponding films, and I ended up adoring the class, the prof, and Austen herself. The following summer I made a project of watching other Austen film adaptations (and writing indignantly to my prof about everything they got wrong!), and reading all of Austen's other work. So I was very excited to see lady_anemone's post here! :)