Elizabeth Jenkins-Joffe of the Library of Congress (and a new AustenBlog reader) wrote to tell us that Joan Klingel Ray, the president of the Jane Austen Society of North America, will be on the Diane Rehm’s radio show tomorrow, Monday, at 11 a.m. Eastern time. The show is syndicated via National Public Radio, NPR Worldwide, and Sirius satellite radio, and also is available online from WAMU, the originating station. It appears that the show will be available online later as an archive as well.

As previously posted, Professor Ray will also be speaking at the Library of Congress and at Goucher College in Baltimore on Tuesday. Elizabeth sent us a correction to the information phone number at the Library of Congress; the number in the post is now correct.

Alert AustenBlog Reader Sarah sent us a link to a New York Times article about the royal wedding yesterday, pointing out a particular quote:

This time around, the bride was in an elegant cream suit and broad-brimmed hat, and the groom wore the sort of smart morning suit that makes even the most unprepossessing Englishman look dashing. Suddenly, Mr. Awkward began to seem like Mr. Darcy.

You think that, Jane, if it gives you comfort.

Thanks for the link, Sarah!

P.S. We wish the Prince and the Duchess all the best, really.

Alert AustenBlog Reader Lorraine sent us a link to an article at CBC.ca about chick lit masquerading as non-fiction. There is a passing mention of Jane Austen, and yes, it compares her work to chick lit, but it’s not so bad, really.

The moniker “chick lit” entered the vernacular around 1998, when Helen Fielding – then a columnist for London’s Independent – adapted her newspaper creation Bridget Jones to book format; the Oxford English Dictionary included the phrase as of 2002. Bridget is a chain-smoking, futilely self-bettering Londoner with a knack for creative semantics (”My flobby body flobbering around…”). Fielding dropped her loveable character into a version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice — appropriately so, since Austen is an early incarnation of chick lit at its best, if chick lit simply means women’s lives in close-up.

Emphasis ours. See, that definition we can live with.

But Fielding, as astute an observer of social class as Austen, was actually writing satire. Bridget’s “wobbly bits” and “singleton” obsessions were Sloane Square silliness, gently mocked.

Well, perhaps if you’re the kind of American who hasn’t read Jane Austen…

Thanks for the link, Lorraine!