Dear Jane Austen by Patrice Hannon

Imagine if you will the beloved authoress, Jane Austen, receiving her post in 1816 while sitting at her little writing table and having just penned the closing lines to Persuasion.  The post is brought in by little Fanny, a favourite niece of the author and after a brief exchange Austen turns to her letters.  The first she opens is written by a 21^st century young woman, a “heroine-in-training” if you will, asking for Jane’s advice on her love-life.  Using examples and direct quotes from her novels, Austen begins dispensing advice with the same wit she used in personal letters to family members.

An English professor and full Ph.D, Hannon has taught Austen’s novels for many years.  In this, a “Dear Abby”-type advice book, Hannon writes as she imagines Jane Austen would on topics like love, sex, marriage and men in general, instructing would be heroines everywhere to first and foremost be true to themselves.

A great companion to Austen’s life works, Hannon does a fine job deconstructing the novels we’ve come to love and know so well.  A recommended read for every Austen lover.

Till next time, happy reading!

L J

Where the eff has September gone?

I don’t know about you, but for me, this month is flying by.  I’ve only managed to read 2 complete novels this month, and I normally read 2 a week!!  That’s how crazy this month has been.

First I was sick (yeah yeah boo-hoo, I’ve used this as an excuse long enough….), then school started.  I work in an academic library and for me, September is the busiest time of the year, getting student staff hired, trained, scheduled and back to work, not to mention welcoming all those first year students and returning students.  On top of that I decided to return to my own studies this semester.  I’m about half-way through an honours B.A. in English Literature, and had taken about a year off for personal reasons, so it feels strange to be a student again. 

I am three weeks and two assignments into a programming course that is interesting but time consuming.  The textbook only just arrived by post (had to order it through Amazon.com because it wasn’t in at the University Bookstore and Amazon.ca listed it as out of stock) this week, and I have about 6 chapters (some 200 pages) to read and make notes on before the quiz next Thursday (I’m so hoping this quiz is all code … that, I understand from class).  I will therefore be spending this upcoming weekend reading a programming text rather than my fiction book.  Boo.

And I just started reading Brisingr too, the third book in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle.  Expect a review for that in oh, about a month or so…..Thankfully I have two reviews (from the two books I actually managed to read this month) in holding so I’ll be posting something, sometime, but if I’m not around much, you know why …. Class and reading and studying and yeah yeah I know excuses excuses…..

Now to hang my head in shame.  I have not read a CanLit book this month.  And won’t as there’s only a week left and I have, as forementioned, coursework to do and Brisingr to read.  But before you proclaim my punishment remember: I read two CanLit books in both August and July this summer, so I think I’m good to miss a month…..

Till next time, L will be ducking the wet noodles J

Cheers,

L

 

Cat & Mouse (Alex Cross #4)

I have so far relatively enjoyed the first three Alex Cross books I’ve read, so when I released Cat & Mouse from my holds list at the public library, I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, to my great disappointment, it sucked. The worst installment in a series ever. And I will tell you why.

First, Patterson uses a recycled villain. Gary Soneji, the psycho killer from the first book, Along Came a Spider is back to torment Alex Cross and his family. Okay, I get the fact that Soneji was the one that got away and would eventually have to be dealt with, but not as the focus of another book. Couldn’t he have been a subplot? Or at least haunted Cross for more than three books? I was disappointed in Patterson’s reuse of plot and villain so soon in the series. Makes me worry about the other books still to read.


Second, the secondary villain’s name is Mr. Smith. We only learn about halfway into the book that this name actually has literary significance, but it was so obscure a reference that I didn’t get it until I was told it and so for the first half of the book I was thinking: “Mr. Smith? Really? That’s the most creative name you could come up with?” Oh but wait, this isn’t really a creative book is it? Recycled villain, recycled plot, now cheesy villain name. Sigh.


Third, what the eff happened to Cross????? He meets a skirt and is suddenly all lovesick and smarmy and downright horrible to listen to. Where’s the clear thinking, level headed, logical detective? I get that Cross has had some hard knocks in his personal life, and that he’s really been struggling with the balance between work and family life, but in this book Patterson jumps that up about 1000 notches and it gets annoying very, very quickly. Oh, and metaphors like the “dance floor of life” just make me want to retch. There’s this one part, where Cross takes his date dancing, and they’ve both suffered tragic loss in the love department, so Patterson writes, in Cross’s inner monologue, that he and Christine are getting out on the floor to dance just like they are rejoining the “dance floor of life.” What does that mean?!?!?! Who could read this stuff without poking their eyes out? Seriously!


Finally, the one redeeming factor, if you can stomach the first half of the book is that Cross gets injured and is shunted aside by FBI behavoural specialist Thomas Pierce who breathes new life into the book. Once we’re in Pierce’s head this book takes off like a rocket. Pierce’s inner monologue is everything we’d want of Cross’s and more. Unfortunately Pierce is all tied up in nasty ways with cheesy villain Mr. Smith and we’re back to Cross before we can say “I like that Thomas Pierce, why can’t there be a series about him?” Thankfully, Patterson gets his writing chops back once he dispenses with Soneji and focuses in on Mr. Smith and truly the book becomes enjoyable again. A small thrill ride, much like the baby roller coasters you can ride at small town fairs, and very nearly makes up for having to wade through the first half of the book. Although, had this book not been part of a series, I would have been sorely tempted to abandon it by the 50-page mark. Just my 2 cents.


Till next time, happy reading.
L

A Memoir of Jane Austen

About 50 years after the death of author Jane Austen, her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh was approached and asked to write a memoir detailing her life. He agreed, though he was but a young boy when she died and many of her letters and other memorabilia had long since been destroyed. What he produced was an incomplete and inaccurate portrait of the author, filled with reminiscences of an aunt who died long before the memoir’s author reached manhood and could know her properly.

What is wonderful about this book is the glowing report of a beloved aunt and author. Also the descriptions of England during the Regency period, so different from the Victorian England of Austen-Leigh’s adulthood, will delight any historian. This is truly a sweet and delicate read that I enjoyed very much.

As Fay Weldon says in her introduction: “…the real strength and importance of the memoir … is the occasion it affords … for ‘observing many changes gradually effected in the manners and habits of society’ … here we have such intriguing descriptions of balls, and etiquettes and household manners, and how gentlemen used to do their own gardening and how the early dinner hour rendered candlesticks unnecessary and how gloves which were a little soiled were thought good enough for a country dance ….”

And so the memoir does delight and inform and treat the reader to a long ago era in which Jane herself lived and wrote. Sigh. I’m off to watch more BBC adaptations now….

Till next time, happy reading.
L :)

Testing out the new blog

Test test gotta test out this new blog before I move over from posterous.