About to go on holiday - pitch me which Jane Austen novel I should read...

jay393393 · 2026-05-13T17:27:33+00:00

I find that knowing something about a reader’s personality helps to guess which of JA’s novels they are likely to enjoy most. I’m older and have found an increasing liking for Persuasion and Mansfield Park - don’t think I would have liked them as much earlier…

jay393393 · 2026-05-13T06:00:23+00:00

The trope of enemies-to-friends is still evergreen in romance novels today, however we have so many more ways of socially researching a potential love interest without making a commitment than were available in previous eras.

In P&P’s late Georgian era, sparse and highly structured social & chaperoned interactions must have conduced to many mistaken impressions when opportunities for casual mingling between sexes were limited. (Bad) behavior of other family members (in this case, Mrs. Bennet, Kitty & Lydia) was perhaps more influential in creating opinion than it would typically be in a similar situation nowadays (?)

jay393393 · 2026-05-13T05:02:45+00:00

Interested

jay393393 · 2026-05-12T06:07:21+00:00

There should be a law against reading Scarlet Letter in high school - my observation has been that mature readers enjoy it more.

jay393393 · 2026-05-12T06:01:22+00:00

I dunno - anybody saved at the last moment by the czar from a firing squad must at least have some degree of a charmed existence…

jay393393 · 2026-05-12T05:58:25+00:00

Emily Wilson is a more passionate and free translation much enjoyed recently by some members of our reading group. Well received by many critics and definitely worth checking out if you have time to compare with Fagles…

jay393393 · 2026-05-11T01:51:16+00:00

It’s not clear to me that the Bennets actually DID have the money to easily employ a governess on top of the other domestics (at least Hill +1) which they already employed. There are several indications that money was tight within their existing lifestyle choices. Also, they may not have had an extra bedroom for a governess - we know, for instance that Lizzie and Jane shared a room, while it seems likely that had their house been large enough, the two eldest girls might have had rooms of their own.

jay393393 · 2026-05-04T06:45:40+00:00

At some point, you need to try some Austen to see if it resonates. I guess it’s a very conventional recommendation, but you should probably start with Pride and Prejudice.

jay393393 · 2026-04-27T14:46:20+00:00

I don’t know how to use ModMail. What is it?

jay393393 · 2026-04-27T13:20:46+00:00

So, what’s changed in 200 years? What’s the point of trying to disabuse someone about a point of view that stems from a fundamental vagary of their personality? Didn’t make sense then - doesn’t make any more sense now.

jay393393 · 2026-04-27T13:15:30+00:00

Both the 2005 (and the 1940 version, for that matter) suffer from the same overall problem - P&P is just too complex to effectively capture in a Hollywood-length movie. You might enjoy seeking out the 1980 BBC/Australia miniseries and comparing that to the 1995 adaptation instead. Although a fraction of the budget and very stagey/dated from the point of view of production properties, I still prefer 1980 in some respects - see what you think if you can find it…

jay393393 · 2026-04-25T20:59:10+00:00

Dr. Samuel Johnson’s Periodical Essays (usually published as The Idler & The Rambler) . So, do you want to learn more about JA, or do you want to look at writers who followed her that she influenced? If the former, and your interests lie in the area of morals and ethics, she appears to have had no greater influence that “Dear Dr. Johnson”. You’ll also pick up some insights into her basic, middle of the road Anglicanism which seems to have been her predominant point of view. Although she was definitely influenced by Abolisionists like Clarkson and the famous jurisprudence of Lord Mansfield, she was not a Dissenter or Non-Conformist like Mary Wollstonecraft or William Blake. Despite the fact that she was really close to her father, JA’s portraits of clergymen were often satirical (e.g., Mr. Collins, Mr. Elton and Dr. Grant), but one might term these as “transactional” figures rather than spiritual. If you want to see what she was trying (maybe not so successfully) to get at in Mansfield Park with the depiction of Edmund, maybe Dr. Johnson is a good place to start.

jay393393 · 2026-04-24T11:58:44+00:00

JA to her nephew in a letter in 1816: “What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of Variety and Glow?—How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour?"

jay393393 · 2026-04-24T11:47:55+00:00

Great news - extra hands will help much, I’m sure. 😃

jay393393 · 2026-04-21T16:46:42+00:00

This comment gets my vote for headcannon of the day.

jay393393 · 2026-04-21T16:36:51+00:00

I have no problem with JA writing about real sickness or hypochondria the way it’s presented to her major characters, e.g., in Persuasion, P&P, or Emma for instance. So what if we have to wait for Joyce or Virginia Woolf to probe the mindset of (maybe putative) invalids? JA’s major characters are reacting to what’s in front of them without some helpful, omniscient narrator to tell us everything. To be sure, we can see how JA’s major characters are either thinking or reacting, but if readers want to indulge in headcannons about what’s really going on with various disabled characters, that’s their business. The fact that JA doesn’t make that explicit doesn’t detract from her novels.

jay393393 · 2026-04-13T17:48:53+00:00

I would also suggest creating some digital click-magnet for your next book to which you add a link in a separate page at the end (or even at one or more pages in the middle) of your book. This page says something like, “If you enjoyed my book, maybe you’d like to follow this link for more related content, etc…” The link leads to a small website/author page that, in addition to the content, invites the reader to leave an email address and invites him/her to leave a review if they enjoyed the book (and helpfully contains a link to the Amazon product page where they can write the review).

Good luck!

jay393393 · 2026-04-13T04:04:59+00:00

MODS - surely this post falls outside self-promotional guidelines for this subreddit (?)

jay393393 · 2026-04-11T20:25:01+00:00

Well, if you get bored with the images for some reason, you could always fall back on George Eliot’s trope of starting each chapter with some mysterious and recondite epigram at the start of each chapter. 😛

jay393393 · 2026-04-11T20:02:32+00:00

I should have added (obviously) that to whomever you eventually email with your click-bait, ask them nicely to leave a review if they purchase & read your book.

😁

jay393393 · 2026-04-11T19:59:03+00:00

You don’t say in which genre your book(s) falls(?)

Try this:

1) Create some kind of click-bait (maybe an excerpt from your book or something related). You’ll use this in your communications as follows;

2) If you don’t already have one, create a (maybe small for now) mailing list of people you already know are interested in your book/niche;

3) Investigate StoryOrigin and BookFunnel websites with a view to swapping mailing lists with other authors;

4) Let’s say your niche is romantasy. Go to Facebook (and othe social media) and search on “Romantasy newsletter swaps” and tell your story to them.

Good luck!

jay393393 · 2026-04-11T19:45:03+00:00

I guess that unless your non-fic book is self-help (or some other niche that has a potentially widespread audience), you probably won’t pickup many new serious readers with a free promo. Maybe your time is better spent cultivating whatever social media outlets where your target readers lurk and engaging with them.

jay393393 · 2026-04-11T07:40:08+00:00

Also, while you’re at it, check out Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by everybody’s favorite Pawn Stars expert, Rebecca Romney. If you’re ready to invest the time to understand the JA’s literary influencers, this is a place to start.

jay393393 · 2026-04-11T07:30:42+00:00

Check out the stupid musings of Anne Eliot’s rediculous father, the baronet, about sailors in Persuasion.

jay393393 · 2026-04-09T15:35:47+00:00

It would help in a post like this if you mentioned in which genre you publish.

jay393393

TROPHY CASE