Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz

Former Yale professor William Deresiewicz has been reading, teaching, and writing about Jane Austen for decades; now, at the conclusion of his academic career, he describes his almost lifelong personal encounter with an author whose insights transcend those revealed by mere scholarship. A Jane Austen Education illuminates the novelist’s craft by showing how her mastery of everyday relationships still speaks to our times. Deresiewicz’s unconventional memoir helps explain Austen’s extraordinary appeal among readers otherwise immune to classic literature.


My Thoughts:

The first thing that caught my attention was the cover.  I've said many times before how I'm a very visual person and especially when it comes to book covers and the cut out paper doll captured my attention from the beginning.

The next thing that caught my eye was that it was a book about Jane Austen's novels written by a guy.  A guy???  While I'm sure there are many male Jane Austen fans, I just wasn't expecting one to write a book about it.

The author begins by explaining that he didn't care at all for Jane Austen books and for the author herself, he found her quite boring and dull actually and didn't think she was a good writer at all.

The book is broken down into chapters and each chapter focuses on each of the Jane Austen novels and he takes us step by step showing us what each book eventually taught him about himself and his own life.

I really enjoyed this one, I mean how many of us have read the books and watched the movies and wondered about having a man like that in our lives, have dreamed about those times and those encompassing loves and lives, but to see a man actually do it too I thought was refreshing and it gave me a whole other insight into the lives that Jane Austen has touched and continues to touch to this day.

Highly recommend this one.

To check out more blog tours, click here.


 TLC Book Tours provided a proof copy of this book for review purposes. All opinions are mine alone.

No comments: