Introducing “My Year with Jane Austen” Re-read

It has been several months since my beloved “Great Animorphs Re-Read” ended, and I have since felt a certain void in my reviews on the blog. I love reviewing the books I am currently reading, but I will admit that sometimes the standard book review format, be the book good or bad, does start to feel a bit rote at times. Over the last several years, my “Animorphs” re-read was a lovely break of format and a pretty straight forward opportunity for self-indulgence (be it nostalgia or ranting).  So, now that we are in a new year, I felt it was time to start up a new re-read series. And what could be more different than a middle-grade sci-fi story that focuses on aliens taking over earth and the shape-shifting teens who fight them off than Jane Austen and her lovely historical romances?

I am, and always have been, a reader of multitudes. While I do tend to stay pretty well within certain genres (fantasy, sci-fi, history, mysteries) and avoid others (contemporary, thrillers, etc.), I do usually enjoy the full extent of said genres. This is how, at age 12 or around about there, I was equally immersed in reading all of Jane Austen’s works while also still blazing through my favorite “Animorphs” series.

I was first introduced to Jane Austen through my mother and her (deserved) obsession with the 90s BBC mini series “Pride and Prejudice.” My dad was out of town for the weekend, and my mom, my little sister and I rented all 6 VHS tapes of this mini series from the library. We then proceeded to binge watch it , before binging was even a thing. I’m pretty sure we started it on a Saturday morning and got through the whole thing in one day. With sadness, we watched the credits roll on the last tape. We sat in silence. And then my mom said, “So, should we watch it again?” And we literally stuck the first tape right back in and started all over again. This is where I get it, to my husband’s endless confusion as I re-watch TV shows and movies over and over.

After the weekend of watching was over, I immediately began reading “Pride and Prejudice.” And then, like a good little binge reader, I read all the other books, too. Since then, I’ve re-read the entire series in fits and starts, with favorites getting more read-throughs than others (though I love them all). I took a very disappointing college class on Jane Austen (the professor had us take an actual test on plot points from “Pride and Prejudice”…again, this was in college). I wrote a few papers on her books, one focusing on romantic heroes in her books and the heroes in their contemporaries, and what makes Darcy stand out to modern readers. And, as always, I continued to devour every new iteration of the stories, from new movies, to new mini-series, to YouTube versions.

From this long history of disorderly Austen obsession came my idea for this read-through. I obviously can’t review every version of all of her books, as that would take over all of my blog posts for years, probably. But I intend to try and get a decent representation of the most popular (by my own made up metrics, of course) versions.

I will review each book, typically in two parts. The first part of each book review will include a brief history of the book and Jane Austen’s work on it. The second part of each review will include my overall thoughts on the book as a whole. And then I will review a few movies/mini-series/other versions of the story. Each book should end up with around 4-6 posts devoted to it, and I hope to complete my read through in the next year. Posts should come out every other Friday following a similar format to that of the “Animorphs” re-read. It’s a big project, and very different from my “Animorphs” re-read, but I’m excited to dive in! If you’re an Austen fan, I hope you’ll have as much fun as I will revisiting these stories. And if you’re not an Austen fan already, you sure better be by the time I’m done brainwashing you over this next year!