Book Review ~ “Jane Austen and Children” by David Selwyn

To be at the beginning of life, one must start at the end of the novel.  For although Jane Austen concludes her books with the marriage of the hero and heroine to which the whole thrust of the narrative has been leading, and the reader rejoices in the perfect happiness of the union, in reality [...]

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Book Review ~ ‘The Annotated Persuasion’

Last week I ran into Barnes & Noble to pick up the latest annotated Pride and Prejudice, edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks, and since then I have been “gadding about” as Austen would say – so no time to really give it a complete read and review; but in another trek yesterday into yet another [...]

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Book Review ~ ‘Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand’

Inquiring Readers:  I welcome guest blogger Janeite Lynne, a JASNA-Vermont member, who has penned a review of Helen Simonson’s Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand.  Thank you Lynne for sharing your thoughts about this book that everyone I know has been touting very loudly! When I first began reading Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson, I [...]

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Book Review ~ ‘The Importance of Being Emma’

    “You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.” “Brother and sister!  no, indeed.” [Emma, vol. III, ch. II, Chapman, p.331  ]             Juliet Archer in her Author’s  Note to The Importance [...]

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Book Review ~ ‘Whom the Gods Love’

Julian Kestrel is back in this third Kate Ross mystery, Whom the Gods Love [Viking 1995], again faced with a murder the authorities cannot solve.  The larger than life Alexander Falkland, one of the leaders of The Quality, young, handsome, with a beautiful wife, elegant home and many admirers, is found murdered in his study, [...]

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Book Review ~ “A Broken Vessel”

Julian Kestrel returns in this second mystery by Kate Ross [Viking 1994], A Broken Vessel.  Several months after his amateur but superior sleuthing at Bellegarde, home of the Fontclairs, [see Ross's first book, Cut to the Quick, and my review] Kestrel is again thrown into the mix of murder and mayhem when the sister of [...]

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Book Review ~ “Cut to the Quick”

I spent a good part of the December holidays making the acquaintance of Julian Kestrel – Regency dandy, amateur sleuth, and main character in a series of mysteries by Kate Ross [alas! not unlike Jane Austen, Ms. Ross died of cancer at a young age and we have only four of these Kestrel novels to [...]

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Two Guys Read Jane Austen (a review)

With women predominating JASNA-Vermont’s chapter, one question that continually arises is: What do MEN have to say about Jane Austen’s novels?? In the end, according to TWO GUYS READ JANE AUSTEN, the answer is multi-faceted and not always gender-specific. TWO GUYS READ JANE AUSTEN is a delight, guaranteed to make the reader chuckle – and [...]

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Chicago Beckons … and a Mini Round-up

        …if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad…                                         -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey   Off to the AGM in Chicago…will post on the many adventures upon my return…! But before I depart, here are a few items worth sharing: *JASNA has posted online the book reviews in [...]

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Book Review: Pemberley Shades

Kathleen Glancy in her “Persuasions” article “What Happened Next? The Many Husbands of Georgiana Darcy”(Vol. 11, 1989, pp. 110-116) states that D.A. [Dorothy Alice] Bonavia-Hunt’s Pemberley Shades is the best written of all the sequels she has read, and though “lacking in the irony department….it is a brave try, and an amusing story.”  [spoiler alert!...Ms. [...]

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