WWW Wednesday - August 13

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

More London – April 2025

On Monday, it was time for us to remove to a new neighborhood so we took an Uber to the Princess Hotel near St. Pancras. This was not as nice as our previous venue but extremely well located, which is why I had chosen it. We took the Tube to Marylebone so I could show my mother the University of Westminster dorm that Southern Miss took over for my study abroad three years ago and we visited always-gorgeous Daunt Books, then had tea at a cafe on Paddington Street.

Five Things

* Did you know you can rent Emily Dickinson’s room by the hour?!

Miss Austen – historical fiction by Gill Hornby

Title: Miss Austen
Author: Gill Hornby
Publication: Flatiron Books, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 19th-century England

Description: In this historical novel set in 1840, Hornby imagines a purposeful visit paid by Cassandra Austen to Kintbury in Berkshire after the deaths of Eliza and Fulwar Fowle.

Bookshelf Traveling with the Aiken Sisters - December 12

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which was created by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness and is currently hosted by Katrina at Pining for the West.  Last time I displayed a shelf that holds my juvenile hardcover Joan Aikens, so today we are going downstairs to a shelf that is shared by Joan and her sister Jane Aiken Hodge, another favorite. 

Bookshelf Traveling - September 12

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which was created by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness and is currently hosted by Katrina at Pining for the West.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a new pile of books. 

Favorite Reads of 2014 (somewhat belated)

Fiction

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (2014)

The Austen Project, in which Jane Austen was retold by 21st-­century authors, was commissioned (I assume) by HarperCollins, and here Northanger Abbey is reimagined in modern-day Scotland during the Edinburgh Festival, which sounds like so much fun.  Young Catherine Morland is obsessed with Twilight and imagines everyone is a vampire, which seemed an inspired tribute to the original character’s gothic imaginings.

Northanger Abbey (Book Review)

Title: Northanger Abbey
Author: Val McDermid

Publication Information: Harper Collins, Hardcover, 2014

Genre: Fiction

Setting: 21st century Scotland

Plot:  Giddy teenager Cat Morland, a minister’s daughter, is invited to accompany affluent and generous neighbors, the Allens, to Edinburgh for the Festival.  Homeschooled and naive, Cat has spent more time obsessing over Twilight than preparing for a career. 

Sense & Sensibility (Book Review)

Title: Sense & Sensibility

Author: Joanna Trollope

Publication Information: HarperCollins, 2013, hardcover

Genre: Fiction    Setting: 21st century England

Plot: As in the Jane Austen novel that inspired this book, when Mr. Dashwood dies, his estate passes to his son, John (and son’s detestable wife Fanny), leaving his second wife and their three daughters virtually penniless.  John ignores the promise he made his father to support his relatives and feels put upon rather than guilty. 

The Regency Detective

Talks are under way with broadcasters over a TV detective series set in Bath during Jane Austen's time. The Regency Detective has been created by Bath-based scriptwriters David Lassman and Terence James and is billed as showing the darker side of the period. It would be set in the period between 1800 and 1805 when Austen lived in the city. The director, Giles Foster, was responsible for the recent Northanger Abbey mini-series.

What do you think? If done properly, it might be delightful. . .

It is a truth universally acknowledged tra la la

Normally the idea of a Jane Austen musical would cause me to roll my eyes but my friend Eileen, Patroness and founder of the Georgette Heyer list, just forwarded me a link to a conversation with Lori Bajorek, who is the producer of a Broadway-bound Pride and Prejudice musical, and I have to say it sounds quite interesting. Eileen is particularly fond of Robert Beaumaris, hero of Heyer's Arabella, to the point that I once sent her a package of books addressed to "Eileen Beaumaris." I guess her husband didn't think it was as funny as I did, but he must have softened when he allowed her to name one of their daughters Darcy!

Austen's own Darcy

A portrait of the man with whom Jane Austen allegedly had a romantic relationship is for sale but I am amused that the article describes Darcy "the brooding landowner who, after a series of misunderstandings, seduces the spirited Elizabeth Bennet." Maybe he didn't read the same book I did!

Which Austen heroine are you?

Take the Quiz here!

I have seen other Austen quizzes but I like these questions the best!

(with thanks to another Elswyth Thane fan)