Explore your favorite author’s favorite authors at the JASNA Hawai‘i Reading Group’s summer discussion on March 28. We will discuss Rebecca Romney’s 2025 book Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend. The Washington Post calls the book “a meditation on reading and writing, on honestyContinue reading “Jane Austen’s Bookshelf”
Category Archives: Reading Group
The Austen Affair
The JASNA Hawai‘i Reading Group will discuss The Austen Affair on July 25, place to be determined. “Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this “delightfully clever and riotously funny” 2025 debut novel by Madeline Bell that Macmillan Publisher calls a tribute toContinue reading “The Austen Affair”
A Lady of Letters
Jane Austen is believed to have written thousands of letters. Just 161 survive, collected in various compendiums—familial and scholarly, deciphered and illustrated, economic, and expensive. The Hawai‘i Region explore a handful of the letters for its July 12 Reading Group online discussion. Participants from Hawai‘i and across the continent read excerpts and speculated about theContinue reading “A Lady of Letters”
Sisterly Censorship
To get ready for Public Television’s four-part Masterpiece Theater series Miss Austen in May, the JASNA Hawaii Reading Group discussed the novel that inspired the new series—Gill Hornby’s Miss Austen: A Tale of the Austen Sisters. Allowing plenty of room for speculation, we had a spirited discussion of sibling relationships, Regency manners, and Cassandra Austen’s possibleContinue reading “Sisterly Censorship”
Jane Austen at Home
Lucy Worsley describes herself as a “signed-up Janite, a devotee and a worshiper“ who has found Austen to be “a far better version of myself.” The historian’s 2017 biography Jane Austen at Home explores places that shaped Austen’s life and figured prominently in her writing. She argues that Austen fought for freedom to live herContinue reading “Jane Austen at Home”
Fancy That – the Original Fan Fiction
Written in 1914, Old Friends and New Fancies is considered to be the first work of Austen fan fiction. Goodreads says “this charming and original sequel to the novels of Jane Austen intertwines the lives of the most beloved characters from all six Austen novels with new characters of the author’s devising. Inventive matchmaking leadsContinue reading “Fancy That – the Original Fan Fiction”
Persuasive Valentines
In February, the JASNA Hawai‘i Reading Group hosted an online discussion of Persuasions, focusing on the couples, with a spirited discussion of who was was well matched, who wasn’t, and why.
What We’ve Read
The JASNA Hawai‘i Region Reading Group has explored all six Austen novels as well as Sanditon and Teenage Writings. And we’re always willing to revisit them! Member and region founder Bob Newell good-naturedly answered questions and endured critique of his first novel, Courting Jane, which features an infatuated time traveler and a fictional JASNA Annual GeneralContinue reading “What We’ve Read”
Whatever Happened to Margaret?
A Life of Her Own: The Story of Margaret Dashwood got mixed reviews from participants in October’s reading group. The positive: fascinating, well researched historical facts and personages (as befits a journalist author), some interesting development of minor characters and the description of Edward’s pastoral duties. The negative: some implausible plot twists (surely even aContinue reading “Whatever Happened to Margaret?”
Candlelight in the Assembly Rooms
Discussion of crowded candlelit ballrooms in Northanger Abbey with JAS New Zealand reminded me of these photos from the 2022 JASNA tour to England. The chandeliers in the Assembly Rooms were converted to electirc lights and stored away for safety during WWII bombings. That’s King George III and family in the portrait. Note the highContinue reading “Candlelight in the Assembly Rooms”
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