Summer Of Jane

First, I must apologize for not posting this last night. I've been having weird sleep issues for a while and last night that led to me taking a nap at 4 PM but not waking up until 1 AM. And I just didn't feel like getting up and writing a blog post at 1 AM.

Last summer was my own personal summer of Jane (Austen). I re-read all six completed novels and capped it off by reading All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith. This summer, however, is everybody's summer of Jane. Austenland, the film adaptation of Shannon Hale's fabulous novel of the same name, opens in limited release tomorrow. I cannot wait to see it, but it appears that it won't make its way to the Tampa area until September 13.

This New York Times article makes the case that this isn't just the summer of Jane but 2013 is the year of Jane and I think it is a pretty strong case. There have been completely random news stories out of the UK about Jane, both Jane's inclusion on British currency (and the resulting controversy and disgusting behavior of people opposed to that decision) and the story of the legal limbo of one of Austen's rings that Kelly Clarkson purchased at auction last year. (By the way, I really don't understand that story. If the ring is such an important cultural artifact that shouldn't leave Britain, then why didn't culture minister Ed Vaizey prevent the auction from ever happening in the first place. It all just seems like posturing on Vaizey's part.) And then, of course, there's the upcoming Austenland movie and a bunch of books mentioned in the Times article. (I'm trying not to read the list too many times because otherwise I'll end up adding titles to my TBR list, which is already very long.) The Times piece also includes a fun interactive quiz. I only got 12 questions right, and I'm quite disappointed about that, but it was fun nonetheless.