Jane Austen discussion
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How old were you when you first read Jane Austen?
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Christy (TheReaderBee)
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Jun 12, 2009 11:38AM
Good point, Liz! Did you really read Austen in fourth grade?? My oldest will be starting fourth grade in the fall, and I can't imagine her reading JA! Good for you! :)
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i was always in the higher classes and such. i could read fluently in kindergarten. i love reading! i read sense and sensibility in 4th grade and loved it and have reread it many times :)
Well, I'm thirteen now. I started Persuasion when I was twelve (the first Austen novel I'd read) and finished it a week later after I'd turned thirteen. And I just read Pride and Prejudice as a thirteen year old.
Wow Liz, that's great! You and Samantha are both awesome readers!
I have a thing about reading books before the movie comes out, so I read Pride and Prejudice when I was 13, in 2005, before that movie version. Now I am 17 and have read all of them but Mansfield Park. Emma is my absolute favorite.
Just found this group after having a Jane Austen's attack and I am seriously happy because here - Portugal - not many people seem to enjoy talking about Jane Austen and her books. I was 17 when I read "Sense and Sensibility" and I adored it. Surely my favourite so far. I am now 19 and I have read "Pride and Prejudice", "Persuasion" and I am about to finish "Mansfield Park". I also own a copy of "Northanger Abbey" and just bought "Emma" and "Jane Austen's letters". One of my friends gave me the movie "The Jane Austen's Book Club" for Christmas and I actually like it. Waiting for "Jane Austen Regrets".
Mod
Thank you so much Sarah for the warm welcome. :) Oh, seriously? I am waiting for the book to arrive but yes, I am definitely interested! So true... I couldn't be happier now that I found a group of people that actually enjoys reading and talking about Jane Austen. Yes, very lucky. :)
I was in my 30's when I first started reading Jane Austen's books. Now I am hooked and reread them alot! My fav is Pride and Prejudice.
I started reading Jane Austen when I was 14 and I finished all her books within a year. I loved and them and would recommend it to all who would listen to me..I still take up her books whenever I am travelling . Its a comfort read for me. My fav would be Pride And Prejudice and Mansfield Park but thats because I like Fanny Price's character
Great question!I first read Austen when I was about 18. And the first book I read was Emma, and yes, I still love it! That said, I'd seen the movies multiple times before reading them (I know! Sorry!) so was already endeared to the characters from when I was younger. :)
Yeah, I've grown up watching Jane Austen movies, before I started reading her novels.
I did not read any Austen until I saw A&E's P&P -- then I was hooked. I was delighted to find out how wonderful the book is. And I was 30.
I was about 11 or 12 when I first pride and prejudice. I was at my cousins house and I picked out a book on her bookshelve and starting reading it. I could not put it down! I have read it so many times now! I love Jane Austen
Hi Everybody, I am new to this group, and I absolutely adore all of Jane Austen's books. Really the first person who introduced me to Jane Austen's works was my older sister who had taken an extremely extensive course in English literature in High School while we were living in England. One of the main focuses of the course was Jane Austen's works, and through this class, she came to love Jane Austen's books. Then, when I was probably around 8 or 9, I first saw the Pride and Prejudice miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, and I absolutely loved it. To this day, it remains my favorite film/television adaptation of Jane Austen's books.
Then, the next summer while I was visiting my grandmother, I noticed Pride nd Prejudice on her shelf, and dove in, not being able to put it down. Unfortunately we had to leave before I could finish the book, so when we got home, I just started the thing again from the beginning, since I loved it so much.
So far, of Jane's novels I have read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion, all of which I loved so much that it is hard to pick favorite.
So, to make a long story short, I was introduced to Jane Austen when I was about 9 years old, and have loved her books ever since.
Mod
Glad you can join our group. It is interesting how many of us have been exposed to Austen since a very early age. Like you described, we can often partially thank the bookshelves of our relatives! Do we all still snoop around the shelves in houses when we go visiting? Probably even more now as an adult!
Hi Sarah-My snooping around the bookshelves in the house I am staying in has gotten really bad, actually. Last summer, we rented an apartment for our stay in Paris, as we always do, but this time, the man who rented us the apartment was an incurable pack-rat, and as a result had hundreds, if not thousands of books, all over the apartment. Well, when I saw this, I was like :"This is a dream!!!". Lo and behold, that night, after everybody had gone to bed, I went around the whole apartment and looked at every single book (he even had some books in the bathroom!). Well, I picked out like 10 books that I absolutely had to read, along with all of the places I had to visit while in Paris.
Well, long story short, it has become a sickness, snooping around other people's bookshelves (I even do it at my friends' houses).
Sarah wrote: "Hi Turner,Glad you can join our group. It is interesting how many of us have been exposed to Austen since a very early age. Like you described, we can often partially thank the bookshelves of o..."
Sarah, it is almost the first thing I do (when it is polite to do so) is 'ransack' the book shelves of anybody that I visit. Generally, this is a fabulous way to start some terrific conversation. My wife has taken to warning people that her husband is an incorrigible bibliophile. When folks come and visit us, and if they are readers too, we spend near as much time in the office/library as we do in the kitchen. I cannot tell you how many copies of Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion that I have given away, over the years, to Austen' virgins! I peddle Austen to any and all! ;-) Cheers! Chris
I was 11 (I'm 12 now!! :D) and I was reading Sense and Sensibility, but it was getting confusing the way they talked and how the book was written, so I am waiting till I'm a bit older to try to read it again.
I saw P&P at a library book sale towards the end of my senior year (in high school). I thought I had heard of it, so I bought it for 25 cents. A month later, I picked up Emma, then S&S, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion. I read all six within seven months. I couldn't get enough of Austen, so I read her early works and unfinished works, including Love and Friendship, Sanditon, The Watsons, etc.
I think it was as a teenager, maybe 14? Hooked ever since :-)
I was about 11 when I first read Pride and Prejudice. I went on to re-read it when I was about 17,and read the her other novels soon after. I also studied one or two at university and am currently re-reading Emma.
I am 37 and only began reading Austen a couple of months ago. I consider myself a fairly well read bookworm, and once I was an adult I tried to read what were considered classics once or twice a year to broaden my horizons. I picked up S&S about 6 years ago (having previously seen the Emma Thompson movie), but couldn't get into it. I felt like a failure (lol).Then a year ago, I saw the BBC P&P miniseries and OMG, fell so in love. Keep in mind, had still never read any Austen. I was so hooked on the story, I began obsessively reading any fanfiction I could find (published or online). I started to feel guilty, so I finally decided I was going to start reading all her works a couple of months ago. I began with Persuasion (how contrary of me!), then P&P, and I am now about 10 pages away from finishing Mansfield Park. Then I will read Emma.
I could not believe how much I loved P&P...I thought maybe having already been so involved with the story through the miniseries and other stories would take something away from it. But for the second half of the story, especially, Jane really kept me in suspense, even though I knew how it would end! I'm really looking forward to reading the rest.
I just love seeing all these younger ladies getting into Jane Austen! I didn't get into reading her until this year, and I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner! (I'm 28) I checked out our high schools summer reading lists, and P&P is listed for the seniors. I think that's awesome!You young ladies that are reading Austen are amazing!
I was 15 teen years old when I saw Pride and Prejudice on A&E I was just flipping through the channells and happened to come acrossed it. It was such a great movie that I had to read the book. I was instantly hooked! I have since read all of her novles and have started collecting the movies. My favorite will always be Pride and Prejudice.
I read P&P when I was a 14-year-old high school freshman. It was required reading for English class and the single best novel assignment I ever had! :) I read all of her other novels after that, plus some biography books and letters, etc. And watched all the films, of course! Austen is, to a large extent, why I wanted to be a novelist...so that's one of the main reasons I featured her as the author who gives romantic advice to my main character in According to Jane. I always wished for advice like that when I was still dating and single!
Jane Austen isn't as popular in Germany as she is in Britain and the USA. Because of that i first heard of her when i was about 13 years old, while watching you've got mail with Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks. I think you all now the movie. So after watching it a couple of times i really wanted to know whats so special about Pride and Prejudice. I bought it in german and didn't like it at all. A couple of years later the movie with Keira Knightley was released. I liked it so much i gave the book another try, but this time i read it in english. From that on i was a fan.
I first read P&P when I was in 6th grade, so I would have been 11 or 12...yes, I was that kid who would be sent outside to play as a punishment because given my choice, I would have stayed in my room and read whenever possible. Worked my way through all Austen's books by the time I was in high school - and started all over again when I took an Austen seminar in college that began at 8 am and was supposed to finish at 2 pm. Most of the time, we had to order pizza because we would still be there at 8 pm discussing Jane! That seminar is still my fondest memory of any class I've ever taken.
I read my 1st Austen book at 33 yrs old.I have always been an avid read, but of other genre's. One night I was up very late with my 2 yr old who couldn't sleep. I came across the Bridget Jones Diary movie and watched it for the first time. . . . I loved the movie and while looking up info on it online I came across P&P references and Jane Austen. So that month (Aug. 2009) I bought the book and have been hooked every since.
I can't believe I was never introduced to Austen beforehand, given how popular she is. . . .but, I am such a fan now!
I read P&P a few months ago, just after I turned 13.
I read my first Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, after I graduated from Pharmacy school so I was 24. I wanted to read classics that I had not read up until then. From then on I have been hooked.
St[♥]r Pr!nc:$$ N[♥]usheen, pictures, pictures wrote: "What you said struck a chord, I did modern American fiction for a lot of years, and struggling with Emma on and off throughout,before I rediscovered my Austen fascination at 27. And P& P was my fav..."I read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlett Letter" in high school and really liked it. I want to reread it as an adult and I expect I will enjoy it even more.
My first Jane book was Pride and Prejudice about two years ago, some time before my seventeenth birthday. Since then, I have read all of her other books, and while I particularly loved Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, P&P is still my favorite.
I first read Pride and Prejudice at 14, ten years ago... It's been my favorite book ever since!
I was 16 when I started, 17 when I finished all six. I'd always heard about P&P, but a friend of mine started reading it when she saw the '05 movie. I was in AP Literature at that point, and for the exam, it was in your best interest to have several classics read and "prepared" to use on the exam's essay question. I decided to use P&P for one of them, and from what I can remember, I did end up using that and Little Women. I've been an unshamed Austen fan ever since, now that it's been four years!
I was in my mid 20s, probably 24 or so. I had managed to graduate from a pretty good high school and a very good college without ever being made to read any of Jane's books in school. I was out of school and working with a woman about ten years older than I who LOVED Jane Austen and especially dreamed of finding her own Mr. Darcy. At the same time I had a roommate who owned a boxed set of all of Jane's novels. It was a harmonic convergence! So one by one I borrowed the books from my roommate and read them, and was entranced and delighted. I reread them occasionally even now, 30 years later, and they always give me such pleasure (some more than others, of course). And I confess I have dipped into the well of fan fiction here and there (the Pamela Aidan books and Joan Aiken's JANE FAIRFAX are favorites).
So many of the rewrites and sequels / prequels for P&P alter the story.Perhaps that is why the novel "Darcy's Story" (Janet Aylmer) did well, as the author explains in her introduction that that she was meticulous in NOT altering the JA storyline - and perhaps helped some people in writing their school essays because of that!
Its now on Kindle as well as in paperback.
16-ish. I took a Literature In Film class in high school, really liked the '95 Pride & Prejudice, read the book, and it's been a love affair ever since.
Jean wrote: "So many of the rewrites and sequels / prequels for P&P alter the story.Perhaps that is why the novel "Darcy's Story" (Janet Aylmer) did well, as the author explains in her introduction that that ..."
Pamela Aidan is also very scrupulous about altering the timeline in her "Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman" series.
Jean wrote: "So many of the rewrites and sequels / prequels for P&P alter the story.Perhaps that is why the novel "Darcy's Story" (Janet Aylmer) did well, as the author explains in her introduction that that ..."
Interestingly, I read quite a few critiques saying that Aylmer was too faithful, and didn't do enough adding of her own to the storyline, like Pamela Aidan, Amanda Grange, and others. They felt that far too much of the dialogue was just lifted straight from P&P and that the retelling didn't add much to the story. Or at least, that's the general consensus on Amazon.
I didn't particularly enjoy "Darcy's Story" when I picked it up, and never bothered finishing it. But I have read and reread Aidan's books and enjoyed them very much.
I have always been an avid reader. I was the girl who sat in her room devouring books and daydreaming and I never went to recess at school so that I could stay in and read. When I was 12, the summer before seventh grade my cousin had tried to read Pride and Prejudice and couldn't get through. Being very competetive with her I decided to try and I added Pride and Prejudice to the lenghty reading list I had composed for myself. When August rolled around I decided to get to it. I finished P&P, then moved on to Northanger Abbey, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park and watched all of the movie adaptaions EVER in the next month. Once school had started i finished up with Persuasion and her other works. I am proud to say I have been an addicted Austen fan ever since.
i read Pride and Prejudice when i was 13. Trying to escape people who were bullying me at school, i'd go and hang out in the library, i asked the abominable librarian woman there to lend me the book, and i remember one day i was reading it at school, i put it in my pocket and went to wash my hands during recess. i accidently ACCIDENTLY spilt water all over it, i cannot forget my shock at the sight of my favourite book all wet!!!, i was supposed to give it back the following day so i spent the whole night with hair dryer trying to dry it without ruining the pages!! the next day, some mysterious courage came over me as i was giving back the book, the librarian said "put it on the desk and leave" and i said "can i please put it in it's place" with unaccountable luck, i put it in it's place without her looking at it and till today i don't know if she ever found out about it. such a start for Jane Austen's books!
I first read Pride and Prejudice so long ago that I can't remember how old I was. I suspect that I was 12 or 13, because I know that I went on to read all of her other novels in my teens (some forty years ago now!!). I particularly remember reading Mansfield Park (my least favourite Austen, although this is the year when I am going to give Fanny another go!)when I was in my second last year of high school. We were supposed to be reading Albert Camus' The Plague and I was really not enjoying it. So my English teacher gave me Mansfield Park as an alternative text. I re-read Austen regularly (with the exception of the aforesaid Mansfield Park!) and Persuasion is not only my favourite Austen novel, but my favourite novel full-stop.
Whew, let's see. I read Pride and Prejudice first. Then the Focus Features version with Keira Knightly came out. How long ago was that? I feel young, haha. Anyway, after that I bought Emma and Sense and Sensibility but never got around to reading them. I love Austen and her work, but I'm not a total enthusiast. Still, I will read Emma and Sense and Sensibility! Eventually...
Am I the only one who has a hard time reading these books?
Am I the only one who has a hard time reading these books?
Amy, I think I read Pride and Prejudice around the same age. I've never heard of Northanger Abbey, haha. What's that one about? We will both persevere, as I am determined to finish these books, even Mansfield Park.
Yeah, it's been an issue for me, too. It took me forever to get through Alexandre Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo because I was tired from school and couldn't decipher the language. Austen's is a little easier (yay for footnotes), but it's still very mood-based.
Yeah, it's been an issue for me, too. It took me forever to get through Alexandre Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo because I was tired from school and couldn't decipher the language. Austen's is a little easier (yay for footnotes), but it's still very mood-based.
Mm I was fifteen which was almost a year ago. I first read Pride and Prejudice.
Jane Austen
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