Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts

Saturday, February 19, 2011

What a lovely idea...



Go immediately to the website linked below to listen to gorgeous British actors read from some of my favorite books:

Penguin/Carte Noir Readings

The books include North and South, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Far From the Madding Crowd, and many more interesting titles. The men include Greg Wise, Joseph Fiennes, Dominic West and Dan Stevens.

This is a brilliant idea!  Lovely men, lovely accents, great books!  You can thank me later, go on...

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Happy Birthday Miss Austen!!!



Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!
-Sir Walter Scott


Happy Birthday Jane Austen!

According to several blogs that celebrate all things Austen, Sourcebook is making many of their Austen spin-off titles available free in the electronic format in order to celebrate this special day!  Check out the link below for details...

Free Jane Austen books!

I can't say that I have ever read a bad Jane Austen book,  but my favorite would have to be Persuasion.  It is a work that holds such realistic and controlled optimism that  I never fail to be amazed by it.  I find it a bit less cynical, but every bit as humorous as P&P or Sense and Sensibility.  If you haven't read Austen, pick up any of her books and give it a go.  You really don't know what you're missing.  Oh and by all means check out the literary adaptations of her work.  There are several that are spectacular, including the 1995 version of Persuasion starring Amanda Root and the always wonderful Ciaran Hinds...





  

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I care not who knows that I am wretched...



Two delightful twilight walks on the third and fourth evenings of her being there, not merely on the dry gravel of the shrubbery, but all over the grounds, and especially in the most distant parts of them, where there was something more of wildness than in the rest, where the trees were the oldest, and the grass was the longest and wettest, had -- assisted by the still greater imprudence of sitting in her wet shoes and stockings -- given Marianne a cold so violent, as, though for a day or two trifled with or denied, would force itself by increasing ailments on the concern of everybody, and the notice of herself. Prescriptions poured in from all quarters, and as usual were all declined. Though heavy and feverish, with a pain in her limbs, a cough, and a sore throat, a good night's rest was to cure her entirely; and it was with difficulty that Elinor prevailed on her, when she went to bed, to try one or two of the simplest of the remedies.

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Much like Marianne Dashwood, a recent brush with nature left me fighting a beastly cold.  I apologize for the lack of updates, but hope to be restored to life, health, friends, and posting soon.  In the meantime, if you haven't read S&S, you simply must.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Happy Birthday Rupert!


Here's another in our new series of birthday posts for attractive British actors.  Showing at least a bit of restraint, I am limiting this to actors who have appeared in a number of literary adaptations.  Today's birthday wish goes out to Rupert Penry Jones.  RPJ might not be quite as well known in the states as some of his British brethren, but he meets our demanding criteria for inclusion in the British actors birthday posts.  He is British.  He is hot.  He has appeared in a zillion literary adaptations, including Persuasion, Jane Eyre, Casanova, The Four Feathers, Cold Comfort Farm and Hilary and Jackie.  For those who might not be familiar with him, here's a short clip of his work as Captain Frederick Wentworth from Jane Austen's Persuasion...



Although he is not my fave Capt. Wentworth (cough, Ciaran Hinds, cough, cough), he was certainly the best thing about this production of Persuasion.