Following Austen

Our Year-Long Romance with Jane Austen

I have a new article on Crosswalk.com about our obsession with all things Jane.  (Actually it went up a little while ago and I've been meaning to post about it...)

Austen truly is everywhere, which has fans giddy, and everyone asking: Why? . . .

I think there’s something much more substantive here, something that has given Austen great staying power—something easy to overlook and difficult to reproduce.  In a word, I think it’s character. 

Austen’s stories play on a solid foundation—that of her little-discussed faith.  As a devoted Christian, Austen cared about good and evil in all the small ways they work themselves out in our lives, and captured those in her books.  She prayed that she herself would not be deceived “by pride and vanity,” and clearly wanted the same for her characters.

More here.

The Year of Jane Austen

As you may know, there's a TON of Jane Austen stuff going on this year. (Whoo-hoo!  I'm hoping this will be a Good Thing...)

Here's a quick roundup:

Becoming Jane:  a big Hollywood movie on Jane's life, opening August 3 -- stars Anne Hathaway

The Jane Austen Book Club:  based on Karen Joy Fowler's novel, opens September 21

Masterpiece Theatre will air the Complete Jane Austen Season from January through March 2008, including 4 new adaptations plus a biopic called "Miss Austen Regrets"

There are tons of new books coming out, including...

The Jane Austen Handbook, by Margaret Sullivan (Mags is the much-loved editor of AustenBlog -- be sure to check it out for more Austen news.)

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler (just got a review copy of this in the mail)

And, of course, by yours truly...

Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I believe A Walk with Jane Austen is unique in the realm of Austen literature for its personal take on the author's life -- it's one ardent fan talking about her life story and reflecting on what her writing has meant and why we still love her so much, examining Austen themes like love, marriage, singleness, and independence, through the lens of both her life and my own, and looking at the little-discussed topic of her faith.

So prepare for a very good and very full year!

Jane's pic

I wanted to post this with my riff on beauty, but the National Portrait Gallery in London makes you fill out a form and pay some kind of fee to use their images, so here it is.