Tuesday Book Club–Austenland
I had to give this post its own special title, because what was I supposed to be doing yesterday? All manner of bill-paying and errands and whatnot. What did I do instead? Read Shannon Hale’s Austenland cover to heart-thrilling cover.
I am SO in love.
Not with Shannon, although I have it on good authority she’s very, very nice, but in love with the idea of her novel–a 30-something Colin Firth/Darcy-obsessed woman goes to Jane Austen fantasy camp for three weeks to try to get over her Darcy fixation once and for all (ha! As if any of us could!)–and in love with her characters and writing and all the fabulous twists and fun turns of the plot. In love with the idea that I could be a girl curled up on my couch for five solid hours reading for my own pure pleasure, forgetting to have lunch, getting annoyed with the ringing phone and other intrusions, because I’m on vacation, haven’t you heard, and this is exactly the kind of thing I needed and wanted to read.
Some of you were around last summer when I went on my own fantasy trek to England to go on a Jane Austen tour, which was really a search for Darcy and the wet shirt. And at least I found the shirt. Also found the new Darcy from the Keira Knightley version, or at least his actual coat. I mean, I even stood on the balcony where he stood in the movie. Swoon.
So, like Mother Reader, I now have another author on my list of people I want to be best friends with. Hi, Shannon. I’ll be sending you a plant.
I also had the pleasure this week of reading my fellow Super Amazing Brain Society member James A. Owen’s novel Here, There Be Dragons. Definitely more of a boy book, but there’s a female ship captain who’s awesome, and there’s plenty of mystery and fantasy and dragons to please any reader. It’s the first in a series about the Imaginarium Geographica–a secret atlas giving directions to mythical places like Atlantis and Avalon. Talk about your great summer reading. And it’s already on its way to becoming a major motion picture (love using that phrase when it relates to friends of mine). Well-deserved, James.
Whew! Big, fun week. What about you guys? What did you read these past seven?
Technorati Tags: Austenland, Shannon Hale, Here There Be Dragons, James A. Owen, Books, Reading, Book Clubs, Reading Clubs, Tuesday Book Club, Obsessed With Colin Firth, Obsessed with Darcy
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:31 am
Finished The Amber Spyglass. The weird thing is I think I have read it before. I don’t know why.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:27 am
I’ve heard some positive early buzz on Austenland,Robin. Glad to know that it’s a good book. I have Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict on my TBR(and To Be Reviewed) pile,so that will soothe my Austenmania this summer.
As for what I’ve read,finished Keeping the House(which is now out and about,so please find it and read it,it’s excellant) and HP book 5. I’m now reading HP 6 and Lorna’s Landvik’s Oh My Stars,as well as Swim To Me. My nonfiction reading has been a little slow but I intend to remedy that soon. Oh,and I started Peyton Place,too! I have the film version high up on my Netflix queue,but gotta see Black Snake Moan first!
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:32 am
Patrick, what does that mean? Senility? Deja vu?
Lady T, you do need to see Black Snake Moan. Such a wild ride. And I’m amazed at all your ongoing reading. Sounds like you’re using your summer well!
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:35 am
I found that book pretty hard to forget, Patrick. My fiance says he thinks it was written on a bet: “Oh yeah, Philip? Bet you can’t write a book about elephants on roller skates. And throw in the death of God.”
Here There Be Dragons sounds AMAZING.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
I am so glad others are reading Austenland because it is awesome. It’s make me get all evangelical, telling everyone I meet to read it. I am, even now, working on a list of things we Jane Austen fans can consume to help soothe our nerves once we realize there are no more books by Jane Austen that we haven’t already read five times.
Veering into another direction entirely, I’m reading World War Z. I’m only perhaps 50 pages in, but so far, so good. I’ve also been catching up on Entertainment Weekly. One hates to be behind on her entertainment news.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:48 am
Adrienne, I, too, will be evangelizing to all. I’m mailing Austenland to someone today. It must be read. Good luck catching up on Entertainment Weekly. If you get a few weeks behind, none of those hookups they report are right anymore.
Diana, Here, There Be Dragons is SO much fun. Get it.
And speaking of get it, Under the Rose, Diana’s sequel to Secret Society Girl, just arrived in stores! Get it now, now, now!
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:58 am
Yes. I finished American Gods last night. It was worth it in the end. I’ll be thinking about his premise for a long time. But I still think there was too much wandering about for the first 2/3 of the novel. I know the character’s supposed to be clueless, but I had trouble caring until I understood more of what was happening. I also feel as if I’ve been somewhere very cold and gray for a long time. Must read some fluff. Need fluff.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:27 am
It has the feel of something I read when I was really young. For example, I remember that I read Bridge to Terabithia when I was younger or A Wrinkle in Time, but I can’t remember a single scene.
It is that sort of feeling. The whole Mary Malone and the wheeled creatures is something that I swear I have read before.
If it was only published in 2000, then I have never read it before. deja vu, or Space Lord living his life out of sequence or something…
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
With the exception of a few chapters of Harry Potter 4 and my Int’l Econ textbook, I havn’t read anything this past week. Instead, I spent all my free time watching movies - 1 or 2, sometimes 3 a day! It was great!
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I read What Happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles and Forever… by Judy Blume. That means I read four books for June, which is great.
Forever… made me realize that I’m almost as disturbed by guys naming their penises as I am by therapeutic gut-kneading, or whatever it’s called. Thanks, Ralph and Robin.
I (re)started Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern (October 2007) this morning, which YA librarians everywhere are raving about. Next up is A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah - anyone read this? I’m booktalking it at Starbucks next week! My job is so cool.
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Yeah, Molly, but how disturbed were you by teenaged girl being buried alive? That’s the real question. Cass McBride freaked me out like, big time!
Also, why does the name Julie Halpern sound so familiar to me? It’s driving me crazy — like Patrick and his deja vu about the elephants on roller skates.
Robin, thanks for the plug. Austenland sounds great, too. I’ve seen it at the stores, but my TBR pile is threatening to crash through the floor into the apartment below.
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Sara, go get Austenland. I promise it will make you happy. Or buy Diana’s books #1 & 2.
Lizzie, good job on the movie fest. That plus some HP review sounds like good times to me.
Molly, 4 books for June is great! Sorry about the gut information yesterday–I know not everyone is as interested in weird bodily things as I am. Look away.
July 3rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
You must be the 4th person in like a week I’ve heard raving about Austenland. I guess I’ve gotta read it, but I feel like an Austen-poseur - I haven’t read any of her books since college.
And that creaking/groaning noise you hear is my TBR pile shifting under the weight of the entire Austen ouvre being thrown on top.
Anyway, I just finished Un Lun Dun by China Mieville, and it is freaking awesome. Also read Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman, and it was a great premise, but not the best writing ever. Oh, and also Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin - quite good indeed.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Eisha, suck it up. I, too, have bowed to pressure from the blog to rearrange my TBR pile, and I’ve never regretted it once. You’ll love it. And you don’t have to be an Austen scholar to get it. Being a girl is qualification enough.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Glad to hear good things about Austenland. I was wondering how it would be.
I finished A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
ooh, eisha, I loved Zevin’s elsewhere, so is it as lovely as that?
Robin, the next copy I see of Austenland will be mine.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I read Trigger by Susan Vaught. Not uplifting, but really well done, and interesting. And today I started re-reading Harry Potter IV. But I feel guilty, because I have so many review books that people have sent me. How can I justify this Harry Potter thing, especially now that I’m up to the long books? But it’s so interesting. I think that I read the last 3 books so quickly that I don’t remember them very well (a vice that I have), and this time I’m stopping to sticky-note interesting tidbits.
I do want to read Austenland. I was patting it in the bookstore the other day, but it hasn’t risen to the top of the list yet.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Jen, zero guilt about rereading Harry Potter. This is a special time in reading history, and everyone understands. We all have to be ready. I’m setting aside other books to reread some HP myself. Zero guilt whatsoever.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Sara, I only read a couple of chapters of Elsewhere (not that it wasn’t good - I don’t remember why I didn’t finish it…) but Memoirs is good in a different way from what I remember of it. It’s not so… dreamy.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
I finished Midnight Rain by Holly Lisle five minutes ago CST. Whew.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Heather, under the wire!
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I am sorry to report that I haven’t read in, like, two days, ’cause I’ve been too busy . . . uh, blogging and answering emails, I think. Seriously, as I was telling Eisha today, I’m planning a blog vacation soon — for about a week. And every time I’d normally blog, I’ll read instead and try to get caught up with the approximately 35 review copies staring me in the face. Not a bad problem to have, but I feel like such a jerk, seeing as how a lot of authors went out of their way to send these to us.
So, yeah, I’ve stalled on the same books I’ve been reading for about two weeks now (The Confessional, a YA novel; Into the Woods, an intermediate-aged one; a parenting book; a book about MomsRising; a book of free verse poetry that I’m about to just hang up; and Skullduggery Pleasant, which so totally and completely rocks so hard).
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Jules, I really understand what that feels like. On the one hand you feel weird acting like it’s a problem that you have so many books to read, but it really does create pressure. Sometimes I think about hiding my TBR pile so I won’t have to look at it and see what I haven’t accomplished yet.
Cracks me up to think about how much we’d all get done if we substituted X for our blog time. But then we’d be sad if we didn’t get to talk with everyone every day, so what are you gonna do?
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Okay, so I’m only halfway through it but it’s such an amazing read I can’t not talk about it. Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. Wow. Especially wow since it’s written in the first person, and only a really skilled storyteller can handle that limiting a viewpoint and still give the story wings. And this one has a wondrous wingspan!
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I just finished Mitali Perkins’ Monsoon Summer, and have decided that I want to have coffee with her. Before that I read World War Z, which was quite good, but has made me wonder if I need to get the windows of our house reinforced with steel bars. I have Austenland right here before me, ready to pick up and read. Yee hah!
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Now I must immediately read my autographed copy of Austenland, which has been sitting on the shelf enticing me for weeks. I keep starting paperbacks that I can toss into my purse instead.
The best I’ve read this week is Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. I really enjoyed it, perhaps even more than the original Stargirl.
Molly mentioned reading Forever by Judy Blume, and that brings back fun memories from fifth grade. I checked it out from the public library, and made the mistake of telling some friends about it. Of course they all wanted to read it, so Forever was passed around until our teacher confiscated it from someone in class. The girl blabbed that it was mine, and I was so embarrased when my teacher gave it back to me. She knew I had read it! Total humiliation in 5th grade. But now it’s a fond memory. I wonder if anyone else surreptitiously passed around Judy Blume books in elementary school?
July 4th, 2007 at 8:22 am
First person is a limiting viewpoint? Or in Icy Sparks it is because of the premise/predicament the main character is in?
I don’t agree with the former.
July 4th, 2007 at 8:24 am
BJ, you reading machine, you make an appearance! That must be one great book to bring you out. It’s going on the list.
Alkelda, you’ll be sad to know I asked Mitali to come to the conference, but she can’t that day. Boo! Otherwise you could have had that coffee.
Michelle, thanks for the tip on Love, Stargirl. I really enjoyed Stargirl, and it’s nice to know the sequel not only holds up, but might even surpass.
And thanks for your Forever story. How funny.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Diana, if you are writing a story entirely from one person’s viewpoint, as you must if you’re writing in first person, then yes, the viewpoint by its very definition is more limited. It has to be. So only a very skilled writer can give a story breadth when writing in first person.
In third person you can look out of more eyeballs. You can jump around from character to character. You can get into more heads.
July 7th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
It’s a sweet little book, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone snatched up the film rights.
July 8th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Wouldn’t a movie be great? I can totally see that!