Jane Austen at Home | 
pickI got behind on the chapter-a-day read with the #PemberLittens but did finish this one eventually!! I found this to be an informative and interesting overview of Austen's life, and I liked the way that Worsley tied it to the different places that Austen lived, which somehow kept the biography grounded. I did mark a few passages where it felt like Worsley went way overboard on her interpretations of what Austen said in her letters - for instance, ⬇
bailedI have to be honest with myself and admit I'm not in the mood for this and don't have time to read a book I'm not enjoying.In general I'm more of a fiction person,and since I'm already spending so much time reading books about how to be a mom,with a life as quiet as Jane's this book is tolerable,but not enough to tempt me.I think I'd enjoy more reading the letters directly.I was surprised with the similarities between young Jane and Lydia Bennett
pickThis was the first JA bio I read, and I learned a lot from it. In addition to all the valuable information, I appreciated the author's empathy and care towards her subject. It was a delightful read.
Thanks for hosting @jenniferw88
#pemberlittens
pick#JoysofJuneReadathon #BigJuneReadathon
I utterly failed at reading this a #chapteraday with the #PemberLittens with a crazy work month, it was hard to find time to read it at night & stay awake as interesting as I found it. My solution ended up being using the audiobook to catch up & finish on my work commutes. The narration was excellent but I really valued having the print book as well to go back & see the illustrations. I enjoyed this deep ⬇️
pickWhat an interesting read. As much as I love Austen, I‘ve read so little about her - it was good to correct that. I want to dive into her letters now with the insights from Worsley‘s book - and maybe come back and reread this once I‘ve read the letters!
I read this mostly while #audiowalking, often walking past this little garden that just feels so English-y to me!
Thanks to @jenniferw88 for leading the #PemberLittens through our read of this.
pickAfternoon tea and the Epilogue. I've throughly enjoyed rereading this with @jenniferw88 and #PemberLittens.
"In the 1940s, the cottage in Chawton began its extraordinary second life as a shrine to Jane Austen, and Chawton House its life as a library dedicated to women‘s literature. Both of them are well worth visiting today, and I urge you to go." - Lucy Worsley #lastwords
pickThis was such an interesting and insightful read! I learned so many new things about Jane and what inspired her writing. A book all Jane Austen fans need to read! #pemberlittens #littens
pickThis was the first biography I've read about Jane Austen so I learned a lot about her life and family that I didn't know. It was interesting connecting the homes where she lived to themes and places in her novels. I listened to this on audio and the chapter-a-day pace was perfect for digesting the information
#pemberlittens @jenniferw88
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pickChapter 36 & Epilogue (as it's short!) - Jane's legacy.
5 ⭐
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Chapter 35 - Jane's final home 💔
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This Chapter. ?
"Jane‘s memorial stone in the Cathedral, as is well known, made no mention of her novels. It praised instead ‘the benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper‘, then – and only then –‘the extraordinary endowments of her mind‘. The cover-up of how extraordinary Aunt Jane really was had already begun."
? Winchester Cathedral Sep 2017
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"Cassandra recorded Jane‘s opinion of the Cathedral: it was ‘a Building she admired so much‘."
So do many others - My husband snapped this September 2017 outside Winchester Cathedral.
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pickI decided to just go ahead and finish this. I enjoyed it a lot! I didn‘t know all that much about Jane Austen‘s life and Lucy Worsley goes into a very satisfying amount of detail. It was fascinating to learn about how and where Jane lived, and so much about her family and friends. The bit near the end about immortality gave me chills. ❤️ #PemberLittens
Chapter 34 - College Street, Winchester.
Winchester Uni is where I did my BA & fell in ❤ with the 18th century! But I did my Austen module at Southampton in my MA.
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"Persuasion is the novel to which many of Jane‘s readers ‘graduate‘. Once they have enjoyed the sparkling romance of Pride and Prejudice, and weathered the trauma of Mansfield Park and the trials of Emma, they mature to this story of regret and redemption. The circumstances of its writing, once known, make Persuasion all the more poignant."
This was certainly true of me! ⬇️
Chapter 33 - Worthing and Wills
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Chapter 32 - Illnesses
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Today's Chapter 'Disasters' is about Events in 1816. Which is where in Jane Austen Timeline that Jane and the Year Without A Summer is set. It's Book 14 of Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen Mysteries.
#Pemberlittens
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@jenniferw88
Chapter 31 - Disasters
If you're interested in the bank I'll tag a book in the comments.
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Chapter 30 - Carlton House
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Chapter 30 - London!
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Chapter 29 - change of publisher for Emma!
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pickI‘ve been drowning in buddy reads and need to start the dreaded Don Quixote so I forged ahead with this to clear some mental space. Overall a good and informative read, with some (mostly necessary) speculation to fill in the many blanks in Jane‘s life. This is a biography through place, tracing where home was but also WHAT home was at various times in JA‘s history. #PemberLittens #CatsofLitsy #DannyBoy says meh.
‘I went up to the G House between 3 & 4, & dawdled away an hour very comfortably‘,
I to went up to the great house as well on a September afternoon circa 2017.
Chapter 28 - me and a friend (another Jenny, Jenni! ?) outside "The Great House".
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Chapter 26 - Pride and Prejudice
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Chapter 25 - the publishing process!
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As a Gardener this a favorite quote of mine. 😆 #Pemberlittens @jenniferw88
Chapter 24 - Chawton Cottage
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Continuing May's reading (highlighted) into June for #bookspinbingo.
Finishing up the tagged book for #pemberlittens and The purpose of power for #shesaid this month too.
Chapter 23 - Castle Square
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pickI'm a bad buddy reader & finished this ahead of schedule. I enjoyed this; Worsley's writing style is similar to how she presents on TV. Brisk, fast-paced reading that also immerses the reader in Jane's life. The drawback is that it sometimes reads like a BBC script. You kind of feel like you're there, but this is also because Worsley takes small liberties with her imagination, for instance in assuming how she imagines Jane must have felt as true.
"And in fact this whole summer would be full of echoes of the story of Mansfield Park."
As a gardener I found this interesting.
#Pemberlittens @jenniferw88
Chapter 22 - Stoneleigh Abbey
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I found this fascinating:
"In the first flurry of correspondence after her father‘s death, Jane used red sealing wax on her letters as usual, but after a week she had managed to acquire black. This was the convention following a death, so that people receiving letters would get preparatory notice before they opened them that the news was bad."
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Chapter 21 - RIP George
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I, too, had a father who supported me. I think about him every day. 😭
#PemberLittens
Chapter 20 - Lyme Regis.
Lucy almost lost a fan in this chapter - I live in Dorset and it is NOT muddy! 😂😂😂
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Chapter 19 - the Leigh Perrots and Susan.
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"3 December 1802, the day Jane turned down Manydown Park, is a decisive date in her life because this is the moment she seems to change, from Elinor Dashwood to Anne Elliot, from a person who‘d settle for a perfectly reasonable match, to one holding out for the unreasonably perfect. Liberty, and Cassandra, turned out to be more important to Jane than a comfortable home."
Stephanie Barron choice to set her Jane Austen Mysteries just after ⬇️
Chapter 18 - Manydown Park
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Chapter 17 also reminded me of the Jane Austen House Museum Exhibit - Jane Austen on Holiday. It's still available online: https://janeaustens.house/jane-austen-on-holiday/
@jenniferw88 #PemberLittens
"BEFORE THE GEORGIAN age, you wouldn‘t have wanted to live by the sea unless you were a fisherman."
I found this Chapter fascinating the history but also how it shows up in Jane's Novels.
"These ‘holidays‘ lasted weeks, even months. They were, in fact, a way of living cheaply but pleasantly, rather like out-of-season, cut-price package deals to the Canary Islands for pensioners today."
#PemberLittens @jenniferw88
Chapter 16 - The Sea, and what does this quote remind me of? 😂😂😂
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Chapter 16 - #4 Sydney Gardens
My profile pic is of me outside her house!
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Chapter 15 - Bye, Bye Steventon
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Chapter 14 - Away from Home
📸 Milsom St, Bath
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I'm just... not sure how you got that from sentence about chicken dinner?? Worsley falls into this multiple times, where it felt like she was really extrapolating to make sure we get the vision of Jane that she wants us to see, even while complaining about the way Jane's family “reimagined“ Jane after her⬇ 12h
Still, this was a pick for me. I really did enjoy learning more about Austen and her life. This biography was very approachable and easy to read, so for someone like me, who only had a very sketchy idea of Jane's life, this was a great place to start.
Thanks for hosting @jenniferw88 !!
@sprainedbrain 12h