Alert Janeite Ben M. let us know that during the break in “The Complete Jane Austen,” as part of their fundraising efforts, PBS is showing a program called “Celebrating the Complete Jane Austen.” It appears to be showing at different times on different PBS stations, so as the saying goes, check your local listings–and it seems to be broadcast more than once in many places. Laurel Ann has posted a review at AustenProse.

Host Lisa Daniels gives the introduction to the program teasing us with the prospect of learning the inside story of the making of The Complete Jane Austen with interviews of the executive producer Rebecca Eaton, screenwriter Andrew Davies, and Austen scholar Dr. Marcia Folsom. She continues with exclaiming that Jane Austen is the ‘it’ girl of the twenty-first century. Ok. You’ve got my attention.

Fifteen minutes into an hour program, you cut to a local pledge drive and then jump back and forth between the two like a tennis match for the rest of the hour without much new information revealed.

This is now The Complete Jane Austen Torture.

Well, we’ve done our duty by letting our Gentle Readers know about it!

Alert Janeite Maria also has a suggestion for combating the Complete Jane Austen Break Blues: play P&P–literally!

(There really is a recipe for Schadenfreude Pie, thanks to the multitalented John Scalzi.)

Alert Janeite Laurel Ann sent us a link to an article in the New Statesman complaining about what it considers ITV’s subpar drama offerings.

A lot has happened at ITV in recent days. Peter Fincham, the former controller of BBC1, has been installed as the network’s director of television, and Simon Shaps, the previous incumbent in the job, has departed. ITV bigwigs insist that the change of personnel has nothing to do with the station’s new schedule, masterminded by Shaps; according to Rupert Howell, an ITV managing director, the changes “have gone very well”. So, they are happy with loony-tunes shows like The Palace and Rock Rivals. They don’t mind that Moving Wallpaper has such low ratings, or that no one knows what to do with its bizarre sister, Echo Beach. I don’t think so. But I do fear that ITV’s collective nervous breakdown has not borne its final shrivelled fruit just yet. Coming soon is Lost in Austen, in which a Jane Austen fan steps into her favourite novel. Yes, it’s Pride and Prejudice meets . . . what? Ashes to Ashes? Fincham is going to have to beware commissioning editors bearing gnawed bones.

It’s Pride and Prejudice meets the Editrix with the Cluebat of Janeite Righteousness, is what it is.

Which reminds us…we shall work on the Golden Cluebat Award this weekend and see what we can come up with!

Pray forgive the dearth of posting of late. We’ve developed a nasty allergy to the computer this week, but seem to be getting over it.

Continuing our theme of electronic books as we wrap up Read an Ebook Week, we were really pleased to hear from Linda (also known as Linda Fern), who has digitized a really valuable resource for Janeites, The Loiterer. From the introduction:

The centrepiece of this collection is James Austen’s The Loiterer, a periodical of sixty issues published in Oxford in 1789 and 1790. James wrote the majority of the issues with his brother, Henry, among others, contributing articles. After the final issue was published in 1790, James had the entire sixty issues bound into two volumes and published with a limited number of copies. A “pirated” Dublin edition was published in 1792.

[. . .]

After reading The Loiterer in its entirety, I considered it to be a valuable adjunct for understanding Jane Austen’s life, world and works. Also, it may possibly answer some questions that have eluded us as to what and when Jane Austen knew on some subject or other..

We agree! Linda also has collected the content of the late Ashton Dennis’ “Male Voices in Praise of Jane Austen” website and a series of essays about “Jane Austen and the Wars” by R. Jason Everett. We strongly encourage our Gentle Readers to check it out–and bookmark the site and plan to return, there’s lots of good stuff here to read.

Also expanding on our post of earlier this week, Harry T. has uploaded Mobipocket format ebooks of Emma (with the Brock illustrations), Jane Austen’s Minor Works, including just about everything that isn’t a novel, and the Brabourne edition of Jane Austen’s Letters to MobileRead.

Ms. Place at Jane Austen’s World has post about the Thomson illustrated Complete Jane Austen, with a link to Google Books.

And in the “What the Heck Is It?” department, Alert Janeite Julie P. sent us a link last week, and Maisy has also linked it in comments, to P&P by “DVD Bookshelf.” As near as we can figure, it displays the text onscreen as a narrator reads it. Is this supposed to be a film for the strictest purists or something? Besides, when we listen to an audiobook we like to multi-task: needlework, housework, craft projects, HTML coding…

That’s it for Weekend Bookblogging, Gentle Readers, and always remember: Books (including Electronic Books) Are Nice!

This post was made possible by Pat Benatar’s Greatest Hits, which we sung along with badly, with accompanying head banging and shoulder shimmying, to help us to break out of our blogging malaise. We even managed to wake up the Wickhams at the crack of 3 p.m. George just screamed at Lydia to “put on a (expletive deleted) shirt.” Oh my.