What's the best book you've read in August?
Well this one's easy-peasy. The best book I read this month would be this one:
And can I just say, I love this cover- I wish mine looked like this. Anyway, I read this (again- a reread) because I'm rewriting it- modern style. I took pages and pages of notes on it which really helped me to appreciate the characters and all their different personalities. I feel like I really know them now, which is important since I'm writing them. It's interesting because I'm writing a book that's not my own, the characters aren't mine, nothing is mine. And so it's extra important to get to know them, to understand them, so I can stay true to Jane Austen's original characters. And then after all that, I'm trying to make the characters, and my version of the book, my own.
Anyway, if you haven't read Persuasion, you should. Aside from Pride and Prejudice, it's my fave Jane Austen. Where I love and admire and wish I could be like Elizabeth Bennett, I really feel for and relate to Anne Elliot. Knowing you made a huge mistake and therefore ruined your happiness, and then having to watch the man you love court other women... well that would be absolute misery. The book also deals with different family relations, snobbery, and the duplicitous nature of certain people (which all of Jane Austen's books deal with, just in different ways).
Read it, it's awesome. And then, a few years from now, read my version. Because it'll be just as awesome. HAHA.
That cover is beautiful! I can't believe I haven't read this yet. I guess I better get to it. My best read for August was "Queen in Exile" by Donna Hatch. But it was also my only read for August except for school books. Still it was a good book. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is one Austen I've never gotten to, but I really must! And I love new takes on classic books---looking forward to yours!
ReplyDeletebeautiful cover art :)
ReplyDeleteI love Persuasion - a modern telling of it would be fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI've never been a big Jane Austin fan, I'll admit, but I've always heard great things about this book :)
ReplyDeleteGreat book! I love Persuasion.
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to decide whether I like Persuasion or P&P better--Persuasion has such great tragic figures, but P&P has that great tragic misunderstanding/meddling theme too.
ReplyDeleteI love Persuasion. It was actually the first Jane Austen I was ever exposed to (in College-don't ask me how I was deprived for so many years before that!). I quickly worked my way through the entire Austen lexicon after that.
ReplyDeleteGod luck with the retelling. It's an exciting but overwhelming undertaking, isn't it?
I agree. Love the cover. :)
ReplyDeleteI love that you are modernizing a classic. I've actually never read Jane Austen (don't know how I missed reading in school). I've seen movie adaptations of Pride & Prejudice and Emma as well as Sense & Sensability. I enjoyed the movies. Though it takes time for me to completely engage because of the old English. I found I haven't been drawn to seek out the books for the same reason. I would enjoy reading an updated Austen novel.
ReplyDeleteAaaahhh, I can't believe some people haven't read Austen, or don't like her!!! What the hey? Okay, I know, to each his own. I love Austen. And I love Persuasion. Clearly.
ReplyDeleteLove the cover! Must read this one soon!
ReplyDeleteThat's a beautiful cover - and also my second favourite Austen book after Pride and Prejudice. It looks more like the Regency romances coming out today (and which I love).
ReplyDeleteMy favourite book in August though? I'd have to say it was The Summer King by OR Melling. YA about a trip through Irish mythology for a girl looking for her dead twin sister. I found it had such an impact on me. The blending of modern day and mythical Ireland was beautiful.
Anyway, hi from a fellow Canadian campaigner!