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Well the contest has been up for a week and no one has entered. So I have this gift to give away and no one to give it to. Sad.

I read that the BBC is making a new Emma. I love the Gwenyth Paltrow Jeremy Northam version. I think it's perfect. But I'm intrigued by the casting. Romola Garai as Emma. Jodhi May as Miss Taylor. Johnny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightley. Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse. Romola and Jodhi were in Daneil Deronda together and both were vying for the attentions of Mr. Deronda. So I'm intrigued. Plus Johnny Lee Miller has already been an Austen hero. He played Edmund in the 1990s version of Mansfield Park. He was also in the 1980s version when he was a child. He played one of Fanny's little brothers.

Some of my friends think Jane Austen has been done to death, but I like to see the different versions. Each one offers something new. Some new twist.

I would like to see a new version of The Great Gatsby, but it never lives up to the book. I will say the ballet done in Pittsburgh was beautiful and it lived up to the book.

We'll wait and see what else will happen in Jane Austen casting.

Thomas Hardy Meets Jane Austen

In recent years Thomas Hardy has been making his way into Jane Austen movie adaptations. My question is why? Hardy is well for lack of a better word: hard. His characters face hardships and poverty is openly seen. Austen is different. Her world is a world of manners and social situations. The Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice has the girls feeding chickens and shows the muck and the mire of Regency England. Jane and Elizabeth even share not only a room, but a bed. The thing is, Mr. Bennet's estate is worth around 2000 pounds a year. This may make him poor because of the entailment and having no sons, but he by no means needs to use his daughters to help run the farm. Plus the actual farm would be away from the main house.

The Kate Beckinsale version of Emma also shows the poverty and the muck and the mire. This is why I prefer the Gwenyth Paltrow version. Besides Jeremy Northam just looks yummy in Regency clothing.

It's not that the movies are bad, it's just that they aren't Jane Austen. In today's world we seem to want reality in our historical dramas. While it's historically accurate that's not the point of Austen's books. They're character studies, not poverty studies. So give me my genteel world.

An Introduction

Two years ago I dressed up as Jane Austen, the famous Regency author, for a library program. It sort of took off and now I go to high school as Austen and talk about her books and her life. To get me into character for my next round of schools I'm going to pretend to be Jane Austen as she reads the sequels, updates, and revisions to her six famous novels (Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, and Mansfield Park).

There are 100s of these books out there and I've read many of them. People always want to know which they should read and which they should stay away from. Hopefully someone will find this enjoyable.