Currently reading

[Katie]

Just a board to discuss what we're currently reading for Jane Austen July :)

[Wendy]

My audiobook of "The Other Bennett Sister" came in earlier than expected. I'm about 30% through, really enjoying it!

[Carla]

My copy of "Jane Austen at Home" came in earlier too and I couldn't stop reading it! I tried to stop for a few days just to be closer to July (is that cheating?) but it's so good! I'm afraid I'm going to finish it even before July begins... (in Mexico still is June 30th!)

[[deleted user]]

I started my library loan audiobook of The Jane Austen Society yesterday. I like it so far.

[Kelsey]

It’s currently June 30th where I am, but tomorrow I’m starting with Emma, and What Jane Austen Ate and What Charles Dickens Knew! Also looking to knock out The History of England.

[Carmen]

I just started Sense and Sensibility because I couldn't wait until tomorrow!

[Janice]

Like everyone else, I couldn't wait for tomorrow so I started reading Northanger Abbey today. I have never read this book and am hoping I will like it. But I don't think it will ever take the place of Pride and Prejudice. :)

[Tiki-Tami]

Has this been the longest day ever? Could not wait until tomorrow, I am starting Sense & Sensibility tonight.

[Katie]

I'm starting with Emma and some Jane Austen juvenilia!

[Rose]

Started with Emma as well, read History of England.

[Natalie]

I'm starting with Persuasion today and am very excited!

[Rose]

I’ve also got Mansfield Park to finish, half way through, started it in June.

[Jim]

I've just picked up "Emma" as my gateway to Jane Austen July... I've only read "Pride and Prejudice" previously, I notice most of the participants of #JaneAustenJuly are female, maybe as a male, I should just stick with Dickens...

[Lana]

I'm currently reading Emma and Longbourn.

[BookishBoricua]

Will be starting Emma and Sensibility & Sensibility today!

[Claudia]

Started Mansfield Park and Jane Austen's letters today 😀

[Amanda]

I’ve been listening to Jane Austen BBC radio dramatisation collection today. Loving it so far. A different way for me to consume a bit of Jane. It’s all of the novels in 14 audio hours so they have been condensed somewhat so not sure I’d recommend to someone as an Austen starting point but as I’ve read all of the novels multiple times- I don’t think I’m missing out on anything xx

[Elizabeth]

I'm starting Mansfield Park this week, absolutely adored the movie so I am looking forward to reading the book.

[Rebecca]

I'm going to start with Emma and also The Jane Austen Society.

[QNPoohBear]

Elizabeth wrote: "I'm starting Mansfield Park this week, absolutely adored the movie so I am looking forward to reading the book."

Don't read Mansfield Park then. The movie has nothing to do with the novel!

[Kirk]

Just read the intro of Elegant Etiquette.

[Jenny]

I'm also reading The Other Bennet Sister via audiobook and really loving it. Have read my quota of Emma which is nice to get back to.

[[deleted user]]

I'm currently reading Persuasion, and I've made a small amount of progress.

[Lara]

Currently re-reading Lady Susan, this time as an audiobook. So much fun :)

[Rosamund]

I have started Jane Austen at Home to run alongside the Emma readalong. Lucy Worsley is as good as expected. I am enjoying the way the readalong is making me go slow and revel in the writing as I think I have usually read Emma at speed.

[Chelsea]

I'm heading out on a little weekend staycation road trip and I'm bringing along Austenland for some light Jane-themed reading!

[Sarah]

Getting stuck into Miss Austen right now, as well as the Emma readalong.

[QNPoohBear]

I'm reading Jane Austen Celebrates: Holidays and Occasions Regency Style. It has nothing to do with Jane Austen and when her novels are mentioned, the author can't be bothered to spell the names of the characters correctly. This is a slim handbook of old English holidays, only a few of which are mentioned in Austen's novels and letters. The information is nice but there aren't any footnotes and the select bibliography is all web links. I'm too much an academic for this sort of book.

I have a few others of the same caliber on my TBR list though. At least those are digital and I can delete them when I'm done.

[Sirbooksage]

Thanks to this Austen reading month, I'm finally reading my favorite (based upon watching the films) of Austen's stories: Sense and Sensibility. I'm reading the e-book with the original watercolor illustrations by C.E. Brock. I'm also listening to the Rosamund Pike narrated Audible book as well.

[Elizabeth]

I'm struggling through the first three chapters of Emma.

[nastya]

I'm reading Longbourn by Jo Baker and loving it!

[[deleted user]]

I am reading Emma and The Jane Austen Society. I’m about to start Jane Austen at Home, as well.

[Rose]

half way through John Mullan's book as well as reading Emma. finished Dear Cassandra and History of England.

[Meriyou]

I finally started Emma yesterday (wanted to finish The Vicar of Wakefield first--quite appropiate, actually) and hope to catch up with the readalong some day XD

[Rachel]

I'm starting with the book about Jane Austen or her time. The one I chose is called 'Jane on the brain: exploring the science of social intellegence with Jane Austen' and is by Wendy Jones. I'm enjoying it so far :)
I've also watched the BBC mini series with Colin Firth from 1995 with my partner - I was so excited that he finally agrees to watch a JA novel adaptation with me that we began at the end of June and watched the whole thing in less than a week. So technically by July I was already ecstatically into my JAJuly challenge. Absolutely loved it, my fave novel ands my fave adaptation of said novel. And he enjoyed it too which is a bonus.

[Susan]

I finished Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, and it wasn't great. The pacing was off, and I found some of the writer's quirks annoying. I read Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice last year, and it was better written.

[Zuzana]

Katie, can we have a separate thread for books and movies or TV shows we've already finished this month?

And maybe a thread for recommendations? Though that's not so pressing. :D

BTW I would like to recommend some youtube videos of John Mullan (the author of What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved):

Jane Austen's heroines, from Elizabeth Bennet to Emma Woodhouse | Professor John Mullan: https://youtu.be/ZP_yIu_d6uI

John Mullan on Mansfield Park: https://youtu.be/vi3lQz7d-dU

Proposals and Marriage in Jane Austen’s Novels: https://youtu.be/T1SzUVvH2hU

Jane Austen vs Emily Brontë: The Queens of English Literature Debate: https://youtu.be/mP8dllTkpEg

[[deleted user]]

Rereading Emma and looking forward to rereading Pride and Prejudice later in the month.. plus hope to squeeze in The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner (which I have been secretly saving for Jane Austen July...)
I forgot what a master Jane is in terms of dialogue.. she is simply marvellous!! :) I must re-read Jane every year for she is really just delightful (and so funny...) Thanks a million for this wonderful reading experience, Katie and Marissa, may it continue always!! :) Happy reading!! :)

[fatma]

Just finished Emma (adored it as always), planning to read Sense and Sensibility, and dipping in and out of Those Elegant Decorums by Jane Nardin, a book all about the conception of propriety in Austen's six novels ☺

[Chelsea]

I finished Austenland today (a light romance, but not a favourite) and also read The History of England (very funny... didn't realize Austen was such a hater of Elizabeth I and it was interesting that she was so sympathetic to the Catholic position being the daughter of an Anglican cleric). Now I'm going to start Jane Austen at Home which I am very much looking forward to!

[QNPoohBear]

I skipped to #4: Read a retelling of a Jane Austen book
I read Jane and Austen
It was awful and made me want to smack the heroine. I rolled my eyes a lot. Do not read this if you are an Elinor Dashwood! It was worse than Austenland
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[QNPoohBear]

I completed #3: read a non-fiction work about Jane Austen or her times

Jane Austen Celebrates: Holidays and Occasions Regency Style

This was not for me but I expect many of you would enjoy it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Stephanie]

I finally read Lady Susan the other day and I absolutely loved it! I'm currently reading Emma along with the readalong and I'm hoping to start Flamebringer (a re-telling) in a few days.

[Lara]

Thank you Zuzana for the links to the videos! I loved What matters in Jane Austen, it will be interesting watching the autor talk about it :)

[Rebecca]

still working on Emma. Did not finish read The Jane Austen Society. I just couldn't get into it.

[Kirk]

#4 I enjoyed the cotton candy sweet Driving Miss Darcy. I especially the super sweetness after the multiple Caroline Bingleys/Fanny Dashwoods in Crazy Rich Asians. #6 Emma 09, my favorite Austen adaption.

[[deleted user]]

I'm reading Emma very slowly at work and Jane Austen the Secret Radical at home. I'm enjoying Emma more than I did as a teen because I understand the context more and finding the Secret Radical really interesting though parts of it seem like a bit of a stretch.

[Carla]

Zuzana wrote: "Katie, can we have a separate thread for books and movies or TV shows we've already finished this month?

And maybe a thread for recommendations? Though that's not so pressing. :D

BTW I would like..."

Thank you Zuzana! Not so long ago I watched The Queens of English Literature Debate and loved it! Yesterday my copy of What Matters on Jane Austen arrived and just then I found the author was the same lovely man from the video (I'm new to the Austen world, so bear with me please). I look forward to watch all his other videos!

Finished "Jane Austen at Home" and loved it! (Maybe I'm biased as an historian myself, but I thought it was a pretty interesting exercise of social history and really made Jane seem as a more complex human with worries and aspirations.)

I'm doing the read along of Emma and The History of England by Jane.

[Iza]

I finished Persuasion and loved it, intended to read her History of England and ended up reading all the "love and freindship" juvenilia (quick and really funny), now I'm on to Longbourn.

[Janice]

I just finished Northanger Abbey today and really enjoyed it. It was my first time reading it and it won't be my last. I can see me reading this many times and it is also now on my list of comforting books. Just like seeing old friends for a visit. :) I'd like to share three quotes that are some of my favorites from this book:

'If a rainy morning deprived them of their enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.'

"But from my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short."

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

Also, has anyone watched a film based on Northanger Abbey? And if so, what did you think?