Pride and Prejudice Archives - The Quick and the Read

Book Review: ‘The Darcy Myth’ by Rachel Feder

Happy publication day to this funny, thought-provoking, non-fiction book!

I am a ‘Pride and Prejudice’ fan. Not a super-fan, or a Janeite or an Austen obsessive, but I can enjoy the novel. I’ll never love ‘Mansfield Park’ (hideous A Level flashbacks) and I was the wrong generation to appreciate Colin Firth in THAT shirt (yes, I totally get it now…) but I totally respect the way that Jane Austen quietly wrote novels that are still part of the collective consciousness over 200 years after her death.

So I came to this book with purely an interest in a feminist reading of Mr Darcy by someone who really knows ‘Pride and Prejudice’ inside out – and has had the headspace to ponder on it at length as part of her career in academia. Rachel Feder is an associate professor in English at the University of Denver and really knows her stuff.

November 2021 Wrap-Up and December TBR

This has not been a great reading month for me – I was taking part in NetGalley November and had so many plans to zip through lots of lovely ARCs (including some that have been on my shelf for far too long).

The reality was work, work, work with a side order of insomnia! I managed to read 6 books this month, which isn’t many for me at all. Still, I’m on 121/100 on my GoodReads Challenge so this is a blip in an otherwise great year.

(Audio)Book Review: ‘Eligible’ by Curtis Sittenfeld

Modern retelling of ‘Pride and Prejudice’? Written by Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the brilliant ‘Prep’ (amongst many other fab books)? Sign me up!

I was definitely intrigued about this book and it has been vaguely on my radar for a few years (it was published in 2016). When it popped up as an audiobook suggestion on BorrowBox, I thought I needed to give it a try.

How on earth could ‘Pride and Prejudice’, with its Georgian mores and sensibilities, be dragged into modern-day America? I had to find out.