A Cup of Tea & Biscuits

I love my books and I like good adaptations of them as movies, plays, musicals, television series, etc. So, when my Deutschlehrerin casually told me that she was going to watch Pride & Prejudice I went, literally, berserk. How could I have not known about it?! A little theater company called the  Lifeline Theatre  was putting up a two month production of  Pride & Prejudice  - the third in its history. Naturally, I didn't care where it was (just a half-hour ride on the CTA Red Line, so that was good) or how much the tickets cost (a reasonably priced ticket actually), I looked for a weekend when I would be able to attend, not even bothering to consult the guests I was supposed to be hosting last evening, and got my tickets. I was excited, but a bit subdued. No use getting my hopes up only to be disappointed, I told myself. This is, after all, my most beloved book ever. Nothing else that I have read in the thirteen years since has compared to Miss Austen's writi...

I will never get bored of claiming that, to me, one of the greatest love stories ever written is Pride & Prejudice. So far every companion novel, and the so called prequels and sequels, I've read, all recount the love story from different perspectives, hence, I was rather curious to see what a mystery novelist would make of it! Death Comes to Pemberley  written by  P. D. James , author of the Adam Dalgliesh  mysteries, was published in 2011 - I mention this because her first novel Cover Her Face  came out in 1962 and she, the author - Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, is 91 years of age! Why is this significant to me? Personally, she is the oldest living author that I've read. Anyway, the book. The book is about the murder of Captain Denny, whom we know to be George Wickham's comrade-in-arms and, quite possibly, only male friend. Set primarily in Pemberley and the surrounding woods, the story begins with a recap of the events in Pride & P...

For anyone, who is as obsessed with P & P as I am - and I'm certain there are many - the most natural thing is to wonder, after you've read P & P, what was going on in Darcy's head. What's his side of the story? His point of view, his opinions? Jane Austen told us one of the greatest love stories (I'm going out on a limb here, but I dare you to refute me) through the heroine's eyes. While Elizabeth is a practical and generally sensible story teller, it might seem very biased. Just the story-telling part of it. And because I like Mr. Darcy more than I like Elizabeth, for all the obvious reasons, I've always wondered, from probably my second reading of the book over ten years ago, what exactly was he thinking? This book, Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer , came out soon after the BBC adaptation of the classic. There are way too many around, if you ask me, and very few live up to the expectation. Many try to mimic Miss Austen because there is no other...

Jane Austen is was is a genius. Her writing takes you into a world with characters that every girl wishes were real, especially the male protagonists even though all of the stories are told from the female perspective. Captain Wentworth's Diary is one of many of Amanda Grange 's books that attempts to give fans the other side of the story, the thoughts running through the minds of the man that many of us believe could be the man of our dreams! I liked Mr. Darcy's Diary, but disliked Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, so I was a little skeptical about reading another of Grange's books. To my extreme delight, I was not disappointed. This book gives you Captain Wentworth's side of the happenings of Persuasion in a very modest and sentimental way that may have made Austen proud of her creations. It is insightful enough and stays true to the story and its gaps that fully believe that Captain Wentworth maintained this diary himself. You catch a glimpse into the passion an Austen hero...

Alright! I confess! I'm a Jane Austen addict and I'm obsessed with Pride and Prejudice! Mr. Darcy is my drug! There we go! Out in the open! :) My 3rd P & P 'sequel' in less than a month and definitely the best one I've read so far! Written by Abigail Reynolds, Mr. Darcy: The Last Man in the World branches off from the middle of P & P, from Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth. Why does sensible Eliza agree to marry disagreeable Mr. Darcy? Because he kisses her, assuming in his arrogance that she would not refuse him, and is spotted by Colonel Fitzwilliam. Darcy believes Elizabeth returns his love, while she has agreed to marry him only because she believes she has been compromised. Elizabeth begins her married life with much discontent, despite Darcy's constant attentions. He bestows upon Mrs. Darcy, mistress of Pemberly, all his love, admiration and respect and strives to be a good husband to her. He does, however,  ask her to cut off correspondence ...

I'm not insane. I picked this book up on a whim - only because it happened to fall in my line of sight while at the library a few weeks back. I have been reading a bunch of history books of late (my fascination of history being an insatiable one), so I thought this may be fun enough. How utterly wrong I was. Written by Mary Lydon Simonsen, Searching for Pemberly is set in the post Word War II period - mainly England - when the world is just coming to terms with the disaster of it. The protagonist, Maggie Joyce, leaves her home town of Minooka, a mining town in Pennsylvania, and travels to Germany and England on her job with the AARC. Almost as soon as she settles down in a small room in London, she embarks on a journey to see Jane Austen's world for herself. The world Jane Austen created in P&P, to be precise. The twist? That Jane Austen took a story, of the love between Will Lacey and Elizabeth Garrison, their families and friends, and made it into Pride and Prejudice. Fa...

Pride & Prejudice has been, quite resolutely, my favorite book of all time. It has never wavered from its number one position in the past fifteen years - from the time I first read the abridged version of Jane Austen's masterpiece. I have great respect for the author and have loved each of the characters more every time I've read it (my watching Colin Firth play Mr. Darcy just sealed my romance of the character). Consequently, I ended up reading a bunch of sequels, and diaries, and most 'accompanying' novels. (I will speak of them in later posts). Most recently, however, I read Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange , and all I can say is - :0, seriously?! The story begins towards the end of Pride and Prejudice, just before the wedding ceremonies of Jane and Elizabeth Bennett to Mr. Charles Bingley and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is all good and nice, keeping with the customs of the early 19th century. Mr. and Mrs. Darcy then embark upon their wedding tour. Instead of g...