Alert Janeite Lisa and the GalleyCat blog pointed us towards One Boring Paperback, at which an enterprising fellow is attempting, in the spirit of One Red Paperclip, to trade a paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice for a set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica (sic).

I have had the misfortune of having to read three Austen novels in school — “Emma,” “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Mansfield Park.” I found each novel to be unbearable. Furthermore, each novel was indistinguishable to me from the other ones. I love literature and have an extensive collection of fiction and non-fiction books. But Austen is just impenetrable to me. I simply do not care who gets to marry whom; I do not care which suitor comes from a better family.

I sold “Emma” to someone in college. I have one copy of “Mansfield Park” on my shelf. I owned two copies of “Pride and Prejudice” — because it was assigned both in college and in law school (in a Law & Literature class).

Editorial aside: How cool is that??? Real estate law, probate law, marriage laws…yes, it’s all in there.

I donated one of those two copies to the public library several years ago.

Of the three novels, I recall liking “Mansfield Park” the most (for reasons that escape me); therefore, I will keep that book. That leaves me with one copy of “Pride and Prejudice” to give away.

Whatever.

Growing up, there were few things as exciting to me as randomly flipping through the Encyclopedia Brittanica. The huge number of topics and well-written articles mesmirized me for countless hours.

But apparently he was not sufficiently “mesmirized” to learn the proper spelling of the title.

Should we tell him that by the time his infant son is old enough to use an encyclopedia purchased today, it will be out of date? Should we tell him that any librarian with a pulse could explain quite easily to his child (who very likely will be computer-literate in his crib) how to use the CD/online versions of the encyclopedia, which by the bye can be more easily updated and also are interactive? What Would Jane Do, Gentle Readers? Would she say, perhaps, that he should have tried Sense and Sensibility, where he might have learned what happens to gentlemen who do not deserve the compliment of rational opposition? It’s a puzzler, all right.

Filming has begun on Lost in Austen in a North Yorkshire village with the charming name of Nun Monkton. We can’t stop it, so we are trying to be philosophical, at least until we learn something really snark-worthy about it.

Charles Ashby, a parish councillor at Nun Monkton, said he was delighted the programme-makers had picked the village.

He said: “We are very pleased indeed that they have chosen our village. It will be a brief inconvenience for the day but we’ve had no complaints.”

James Mackman, clerk to the parish council said: “The locations manager from the programme came down to the village green and discussed his plans with myself and Coun Ashby. He was very obliging to our concerns to protect the green.”

“The alterations and disguises they are adding to the green are really quite clever and I’m sure on the day there will be crowds of people watching the filming.”

Incidentally, there is a very good (technical) reason why we don’t yet have an official blog category for this film or Austen Handheld. You will learn why in a few weeks, we hope.

Hee. DuckRabbit points us to The Book of Sequels, which apparently contains blurbs for proposed sequels to classic literature, including Pride and Extreme Prejudice.

The action-packed sequel to Pride and Prejudice introduced a new Bennet sister, “Dirty” Harriet, who won the hearts of Jane Austen fans by forestalling an insult from Elizabeth Bennet’s old nemesis, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, with a cool “I have no objection, your ladyship, to your proceeding, since, by so doing, you shall render my afternoon quite agreeable.”

That one’s right up there with “Leave the parasol. Take the syllabub.” (A thousand points that don’t mean anything to the first Alert Janeite to post the origin of that reference in comments…)