I absolutely adore some of Austen’s books–one of my first reviews for Cannonball Read IV was of Northanger Abbey. I love the energy and passion of Pride and Prejudice (“What are men to rocks and mountains?” indeed), the mischief of Emma, and the creaky doors and thunderstorms and laundry lists of Northanger Abbey. I sympathise with Elinor Dashwood, and think she could have done much better in terms of sisters and eventual husbands–but I also sympathise with Marianne’s youthful desire for drama, and think she […]
I’ll save you having to read this review: Just go watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube. I mean it. GO!
Okay, now when you’re done with that, come back and read this review. And then maybe get yourself a copy of The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet and snuggle up in your reading chair for a couple of hours. What this book is, basically, is an adaptation of a YouTube series, which is itself a modern day adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, told in interactive vlog-form (there are additional in-world videos, Tumblrs, and Twitter accounts, and if you watched live, you could interact with […]
“It was a horrible time to be alive”
In her Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen, author Fay Weldon calls the Regency era “by our standards, a horrible time to be alive.” She also writes that the class society was “fair enough if you were Jane Austen, but supposing you were the maid?” That is what Jo Baker’s Longbourn does: supposes you were the maid. And it does the supposing brilliantly. For me, this was one of those books where the reading experience is so emotionally magnificent, it seems like a […]
I’m Team Wentworth
Jane Austen is a big player in the Cannonball world. We love her books and her movies, and we can’t stop ourselves from reading stories based on her work. Sometimes (Bridget Jones, Clueless, Bride & Prejudice), the new stories and movies that are based on her stuff are fun and worthy of a comparison to the original. And sometimes (Austenland, Death Comes to Pemberley, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), they aren’t great, but we don’t mind that much, because we love the original so much. […]
A heroine no one but Jane Austen herself could love
So does anyone actually need me to recap the plot ofEmma, a nearly two hundred year old classic which has been adapted any number of times, currently as a successful YouTube webseries in Emma Approved? To be fair, I’m not sure even half of my actual real life friends have read this book, so I’ll be nice to you. Emma Woodhouse is twenty-one, the youngest daughter of a prosperous country gentleman and her governess, Miss Taylor, who more or less raised her from she was very little, has […]
Hey! This wasn’t as bad as I expected! In fact, I kinda liked it.
I almost feel like I don’t need to tell you anything at all about Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood. You already know if this is a book you might like. It is exactly what it sounds like — a modern day retelling of a Jane Austen story, that happens to take place in Hollywood. Wanna know more? Ok. This particular re-telling is a version of Sense & Sensibility. Not my favorite Austen, but certainly not my least favorite, either. I was game for an update, […]