Ventura Jane Austen Book Group

Jane Austen's Worthing: The Real Sanditon, by Antony Edmonds, and Sanditon, by Jane Austen January 18, 2020 11 a.m. Ventura County Library. It is fitting that we begin our year of Jane Austen reading with a book related to Sanditon. Jane Austen began writing her final work on January 27, 1817 and put down her pen (by this time, a pencil) on the novel's eleven-chapter fragment on March 18, exactly four months before she passed away. [ 137 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//were-off-to-the-/

Jane's Birthday Lunch to be celebrated on Saturday, December 14th at 11:30 am. Venue: Marie Callender's, Camarillo. As we prepare our 2020 reading list, it seems entirely appropriate that the theme of JASNA SW's regional meeting should be: "What's next in Austen?" The half-day event on Saturday, December 7th will feature two very popular speakers, Janine Barchas and Devoney Looser, and will take place at USC's 'Town and Gown' venue, near downtown Los Angeles. This is always a very festive and enjoyable event...carpool, anyone? https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//janes-birthday-l/

It was all pastoral serenity, and happy sunlit days...right? https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//jane-austens-eng/

What's the difference between a landaulet and a phaeton? Why on earth are letters 'franked'? How would Jane Austen have treated an earache? And how often would her maids have washed her bedding? Are questions like these keeping you tossing and turning at night? Well, answers to these and many other of your burning questions await you in this month's book selection. [ 195 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//jane-austens-eng/

xxxx https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//the-female-quixo/

Arabella is brought up in a remote English castle where, after the death of her mother, she is raised on a steady diet of romance novels. She comes to expect that her life will be equally romantic and adventurous. Her belief causes many melodramatic and comical misunderstandings among her relatives and admirers, including one episode in which she throws herself into the Thames in an attempt to escape her imagined 'ravishers'. [ 192 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//the-female-quixo/

Northanger Abbey https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//26/northanger-ab/

Jane and Mary: a perfect mashup? There isn't a member among us who can't tell you, virtually scene by scene, the plot of Pride & Prejudice. And we've just finished reading Frankenstein, so we're now equally versed in the dark doings of that novel. So, is it a truth universally acknowledged that we are now finally ready for the ultimate mashup of two of literary fiction's loneliest characters? [ 202 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//mary-shelley-mee/

We continue our 2019 study of the Gothic with the original monster of them all: Frankenstein. This month's novel was written just over 200 years ago. It was composed as a result of a friendly competition: to write a ghost story. The competition was itself triggered both by Mary Shelley and her friends’ reading of Gothic ghost stories and by a discussion they had about the secret of life, of animation itself. [ 28 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//frankenstein-is-/

Fossils along the cliffs and beaches of Lyme Regis In 2018, our Reading Group decided that it would be helpful, when choosing which books to read, to generally follow something called the Montreal Plan. It sounds something like a battle campaign. It's actually a criteria for book selection which, during the course of year, will hopefully give us a well-rounded view of Jane Austen and the world she lived in. [ 157 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//will-mays-book-d/

What horrors await us this month? We continue our 2019 study of the Gothic Novel with a reading of The Woman in White. This book was the first great 'sensation' novel. Wilkie Collins' intricate plot borrows elements from both Realist and Gothic fiction. The book was first serialised in Charles Dickens’s journal All The Year Round, starting in November 1859. [ 122 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//april-the-woman-/

Just HOW evil is Lady Susan? NOTE: Because of the downtown Ventura St. Patrick's Day parade, our March book discussion will be held Saturday, March 16 at the Marie Callender's in CAMARILLO (185 E. Daily Drive) at 11 a.m. Who's the baddest of the bunch? Gracia Fay will lead us this month in a compare and contrast discussion of Jane Austen's 'Lady Susan' and George Elliot's 'Silas Marner', with a particular emphasis on the wicked nature of the two characters, Lady Susan Vernon and Dunstan Cass. [ 59 more words ] https://venturajaneausten.wordpress.com//lets-compare-vil/