When we reviewed Jane Austen’s Guide to Dating a while back, we remarked that reading the advice contained therein was like receiving a letter full of good advice from Aunt Jane. In Dear Jane Austen, Patrice Hannon has gone one better and provided exactly that: a series of letters in Jane Austen’s voice, full of common sense and bracing admonitions, not just on romantic matters but embracing other aspects of life on which modern women might need advice, from financial to fashion to family relations, illustrating the advice with examples from her own novels.

In the wrong hands, such an endeavour could turn revoltingly twee, but Dr. Hannon has a sure grasp of the tone and subject matter. A college professor who has “taught Jane Austen’s novels to hundreds of students” according to her bio blurb, Dr. Hannon knows her Austen and aptly applies the novels to the situation of each applicant for advice, reinforcing each “lesson” with a boxed aphorism (”Jane Austen says: A heroine needs good friends as much as she needs a hero”). (more…)

Meg Cabot, author of the teen novel The Princess Diaries, reveals an early love for Jane:

As a teen, the tall, effusive 39-year-old native of Bloomington, Ind., was a self-described geek who made frequent pilgrimages to the local library in pursuit of air conditioning and emerged with a career founded on her favorite summertime authors: Jane Austen, Judy Blume and Barbara Cartland.

In an odd little quirk, Anne Hathaway, who starred in Disney’s movie version of The Princess Diaries, is of course slated to play Miss Austen in BECOMING JANE.

Review by TeresaAF

Among the plethora of Jane Austen novel retellings, sequels, and completions, there are several things that irritate me and other Janeites to no end. Capital amongst these offenses has to be misspelled names and places. These stories are often peppered with various misspellings of the surname “Bennett” or of the Darcy estate “Pemberly,” which I find especially hard to forgive.

Thankfully, Sally Smith O’Rourke, author of The Man Who Loved Jane Austen, (not to be confused with the novel of the same name by Ray Smith) seems to have taken great care to not infuriate us by getting the spelling of these names correct. Unfortunately, the author chose to populate her story with character names straight out of Jane Austen’s own books or from among her Chawton relations. (more…)

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is amused at the way we Janeites have collectively swooned at the feet of Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade after he chose Pride and Prejudice as his favorite classic novel.

In his third season as the Miami Heat’s superstar guard, Dwyane Wade picked up some unexpected fans when he made Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice his recommended book as part of Penguin Classics’ campaign to promote literacy in partnership with the NBA.

Wade, 24, who credited a schoolteacher for her “awesome” reading of the book, said its themes of class struggle and racism spoke to him as a kid growing up on Chicago’s South Side.

Austen fans who had never heard of Wade pronounced him their favorite player. Joan Klingel Ray, president of the Jane Austen Society of North America, is planning to make him an honorary member of the 3,000-member society.

“In choosing Jane Austen, he shows he’s a very smart man,” Ray said. “Understanding Jane Austen really requires great wit, great insight.”

Well, really, what did they expect?

(And since when is racism a theme in P&P?)

Elizabeth Garvie, who played Elizabeth Bennet in P&P1, and her husband, Anton Rodgers, will appear in “A Celebration of Jane Austen” as part of the Buckingham Festival Fortnight, July 8 to 23, 2006.