Book review: Old Friends and New Fancies

The subtitle of this book really says it all: 'An imaginary sequel to the novels of Jane Austen'. And not just any sequel, one of the dozens which are released every year, no, this is the first published Austen sequel, from 1913. In Old Friends and New Fancies (love the title BTW!), Brinton intertwines the lives of characters from each of Austen's six major novels. The main characters are three ladies left unmarried at the end of their 'own' novels: Georgiana Darcy, Kitty Bennet and Mary Crawford. All three will fall in love and will feel the pangs of being kept apart by social or economical tensions.

Book review: The third sister

In Sense and Sensibility, Margaret, the youngest Dashwood sister, is only a young teenager, but witness to the pain her sisters are suffering for love. Now, at 17, she is the only daughter living at home with her mother. She wants more of life then the monotony of Barton Park and playing nursemaid to the Middleton children, but is also hestitant in socializing with men, cautious of making the same mistakes as her sisters.

Book review: Sense and Sensibility (The Austen project)

The Austen project is a series of six contemporary novels, modern interpretations of Jane Austen’s major works and written by well-known authors. The project was started to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of Austen’s works and the first book written for the project was Sense and Sensibility by Joanne Trollope.  The story is well-known I think, the Dashwood family, consisting of Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters, sensible architecture student Elinor, romantic guitar adept Marianne and teenager Margaret have to move to a small cottage in the middle of nowhere after their husband and father dies. Elinor and Marianne both fall in love, but are their men really what they seem to be?

Webseries review: From Mansfield with Love

Travel to Mansfield Park... the 21st century version. Where Frankie Price is an overworked cleaner, Edmund training to become a history teacher and the Crawford's designers hired to redecorate the hotel Mansfield Park. When Frankie receives a camera as gift from her brother Will, she starts documenting her life and that of her friends at Mansfield Park. And that life might just be much more exciting than Frankie ever thought it would be!

8 Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Things (5)

Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous. It allows
book bloggers (and non-book bloggers) to write about pretty much anything, bookish or otherwise (i.e. sharing
exciting plans for the weekend, rants on things they've encountered during the week etc.)

1. Hello dear people, I´m back! Well, I already posted a book review earlier this week, but just wanted to let you all know that the hectic period in my life of moving and refurbishing is (mostly) over, so I'll have time to regularly post here again, yay!
I moved three weeks ago now and have unpacked and furnished almost everything by now. When I moved in, there was no kitchen yet, so they've been working on that for the last few weeks. The kitchen is now almost finished, it's all set-up, but I don't have gas or hot water yet, but hopefully next week. Here, have a few pictures of my new place, you can see the chairs I mentioned in my last 'Bookish and Not So Bookish Post', which I'm really fond of!

 

Janeite tag!

Joanna from The Squirrel´s Diary tagged me a while (aka a month...) ago in the Janeite Tag. Thanks Joanna, I hope I´m still ´in time´ with my answers ;-)

The rules:
- Thank and link back to the person who tagged you.
- Tell us how you were introduced to Jane Austen and share one fun fact about your Janeite life (this fun fact can be anything from "I stayed up all night reading Emma" to "I visited Chawton and met Anna Chancellor.").
- Answer the tagger's questions.
- Write seven questions of your own.
- Tag as few as one or as many as seven other Janeites and let them know you've tagged them.

How I was introduced to Jane Austen:
I don't remember exactly when I heard about Jane Austen for the first time. I do know I watched Pride and Prejudice '95 on Dutch television when I was around 16 or so. I really loved it and we then also bought the VHS (!) of Sense and Sensibility '95. Sense and Sensibility was the first Austen I read, I read it for a book report for my English class in secondary school. It was also the first full-length novel I read in English! I remember having some nice discussions about the book with my English teacher and got a good grade ;-) I then tried to find all the other adaptations and slowly read the rest of Jane's works in the coming years.

Book review: Jane Austen's first love

At 15 years of age, young Jane Austen has big dreams of seeing the world and writing great novels, but has hardly traveled beyond her own village. Then, her family is invited to celebrate the engagement of her eldest brother Edward and spent a month in Kent. Jane makes many new young acquaintances, among whom young heir Edward Taylor. She is fascinated by his adventure-loving character and even though Jane knows a match between them is unlikely, she starts to fall in love with Edward. When the young people decide to set up a play as the ending of their festive summer, Jane tries to play matchmaker for some of her new friends. But not all her efforts turn out as expected and both for others and herself, Jane must learn not to rely on first impressions.

Television review: Death comes to Pemberley

Everytime an Austen novel is adapted or another program related to 'dear Jane' is being made, all over the world Austen fans let themselves be heard with two distinct responses: joy over 'a new Austen' and trepidation because 'will it do the book/Jane justice'. Last summer the BBC announced it was going to adapt the Pride and Prejudice sequel Death comes to Pemberley by well-known British crime writer P.D. James. The responses from Janeites where mainly trepidation in this case: will this be true to the spirit of P&P? Will the actors be good enough to portray the beloved characters?

Book review: Jane Austen made me do it

More than 200 years after she published her first novel, Jane Austen still is an inspiration to authors today. This is evidenced by the large numbers of 'Austenesque' literature appearing on the market. I think no Austen fan is wholly immune to the attraction of these books, which promise us a new look at a beloved story or characters from Jane's novels placed in our familiar modern world. I at least am not afraid to say I read and enjoy an 'Austenesque' novel ever so often!