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A Jane Austen Re-read: Emma
Hello everyone, The fact that Emma is so popular means that it took me an extra week just to make it through the sheer volume of Emma’s many adaptations, and I didn’t even get to them all – however, I am here now, and I have to tell you that you are in for a treat! I approached this book with some dread because when I first read Emma, I did not like it all that much. I thought Emma was annoying, and the central relationship between Harriet and Emma was grating, and many of the characters felt a little more one-sided than in some of her other books. I…
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My Reading Month: March
Well, March is (finally) over, and I can’t say I am sorry to see it go. Spring is a necessary thing for my mental health at this point, and while snow will continue to fall for the next few weeks, snow in April never lasts long enough to keep me from hiking! Social distancing (I would out money on this as the “word of the year” from dictionaries at the end of 2020) continues to be an interesting adventure, as my housemates and I balance our mental health, work and relationships within a limited amount of space. To say that I have used reading as an escape this month would…
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Small Literary Joys
One of the things about loving storytelling for me is that I love seeing the joy in others when they are super excited about something. I was reminded of this this week when something lovely popped up on a social media feed – Patrick Stewart reading sonnets! I don’t love sonnets, but I do LOVE Patrick Stewart, so I immediately had to watch this. As his beautiful voice started to read a poem I had never heard before, I found myself focusing not on the words as much the pure joy and enjoyment that he was projecting! Take a look at one of his below, and if you like them,…
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A Jane Austen Re-read: Mansfield Park
I promise I’ll have more to write about than Austen here at some point soon, especially as I am temporarily out of work due to events out of my control. In the meantime, I do promise that Austen is worth re-reading! Why not pick up Pride and Prejudice, and start reading along with me? The next book I will be reading is Emma, which is probably the second most popular Austen book, and is a very different flavor from Mansfield Park. There are spoilers below. If you haven’t already read this book or watched one of the movies, this post likely isn’t going to make much sense anyway. Rereading The…
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A Jane Austen Re-read: Sense and Sensibility
Well, since I last wrote, we have entered a very different world! And what better time to explore the classics? They are available free online, you don’t need to leave your house, and after you read the book you can watch hours of Regency movies in all your free time. The next book in this series will be Mansfield Park, the story of poor relation Fanny Price who is taken in by her rich cousins. There are spoilers below. If you haven’t already read this book or watched one of the movies, this post likely isn’t going to make much sense anyway. Rereading The Book This installment, I read Sense…
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A Jane Austen Re-read: Pride and Prejudice
Moving forward, I will be doing these books in order of publication, with Austen’s first book, Sense and Sensibility coming next. However, since it has the most movie adaptations ever, and since it is by far Austen’s best known work, I started here. There are spoilers below. If you haven’t already read this book or watched one of the movies, this post likely isn’t going to make much sense anyway. Rereading The Book I had so much fun revisiting the world of Longbourn and Elizabeth Bennett. Austen’s books are the frameworks for much romantic fiction to come, but they are also so much more, and their depth and complexity is…
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A Jane Austen Re-read: Introduction
Pretty much every year, I end up rereading a series of classics from my childhood. This usually happens when I hit my first “reading block” of the year, and I always love getting to fall into old, comfortable stories! This year, I treated myself and bought a beautiful set of Jane Austen’s books to reread, especially since I realized that while I have read them all throughout the years, I didn’t actually OWN any of them. This is a fun reread for me because I read all of Austen’s works at such different ages that they hold very different places in my mind and heart, and I am excited to…
because stories are important
