Coming from Abbeville: Austen’s notebooks Well, my blog “vacation” ended up being pretty busy. Participating in Austen in August hosted by Lost Generation Reader kept me quite occupied with reading and writing about Austen-related books, and reading other people’s posts. You can see the summary of my own posts here, and here are some […]
Cynthia Voigt, A Solitary Blue (1983) I owe Cynthia Voigt an apology. When she won the Newbery Medal for Dicey’s Song in 1983, beating out my favorite book at the time (The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley), I retaliated by refusing to read it or any others in what came to be an acclaimed seven-book […]
For my next (and possibly last) Austen in August contribution, I wanted to let readers know about a lovely book I chanced upon through this post at Charlotte’s Library: Mrs Hurst Dancing and Other Scenes from Regency Life, 1812-1823 (Victor Gollancz, 1981). This reproduction of two volumes of sketchbooks by a young lady of Jane […]
Jane Austen, The History of England Someone gave me this little booklet years ago, but I’d never actually read it. I decided that Austen in August was the perfect occasion — I don’t have time to read lots of full-length novels at the moment, but a sixteen-page pamphlet is manageable. And I’m glad I finally […]
Today, I’m over at Lost Generation Reader with an “Austen in August” guest post on illustrated Jane Austen editions! I hope you’ll check it out. Two favorite illustrations from the new Folio Pride and Prejudice
Paula Byrne, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things (2013) When we enter a preserved old house, objects are what we see. These paintings, cushions, scribbled notes, and scraps of lace are what are left to us as our link to the past. It can be a challenge to make the imaginative leap […]
The view from my window I’ve been blogging for a bit more than six months, and I’ve so enjoyed meeting many other rabid readers and sharing my thoughts about books. This month I’m taking a break for some vacation travel and to get some other tasks done, so I’ll be posting more infrequently than usual. […]
Angela Thirkell, Coronation Summer (1937) Ernest Shepard, Drawn from Memory (1957) By chance, I recently picked up two books that happened to be set at the beginning and near the end of Victoria’s reign. One was fiction, one non, but both were entertaining glimpses of that endlessly fascinating era. It all started because my library […]