Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Of course, while I was reading all of the lesser rewrites and fan fictions of Pride and Prejudice, I had to read the real thing too. The thing that always stands out when I read P&P is that it doesn't feel all that romantic to me. It feels so comedic. People think of it as purely a romance, because of all the love for Mr. Darcy, but when you actually read it, there is so many funny one-liners and side-eyes at the characters and so many hilarious observations about what they are doing and what they are like. I absolutely love that about this book. Every time I read this, I wish I could be as witty and wry and wise as Jane Austen and write something this hilarious in a modern-day style. Not a rewrite of P&P, but a social commentary in such a funny way. I know that many people do that these days, but nobody gets it like Jane. 

An Assembly Such as This and These Three Remain by Pamela Aiden

I have read these books several times now and always want to revisit them whenever I get into a Pride and Prejudice mood, which strikes me every year or so. After re-reading Unequal Affections, these were up next. I didn't bother to read the middle book in this trilogy, where Darcy and Elizabeth aren't even in the same place, but just read the first and third. I felt annoyed by Darcy's overly romantic feelings for Elizabeth this time (how many times can his breath "catch" when he sees her?). It just didn't feel realistic at all to me. Maybe I am way less emotional and romantic than the average person, but I am pretty sure people don't usually think this way. But whatever, it was still a fun read. I also wondered why the author paced the book the way she did--including Darcy's proposal to Elizabeth and all the transformation that comes afterward all in one book, when the second book had literally nothing interesting in it? I'm not sure I get it. This is total fluff reading but the kind that I love.

Unequal Affections by Lara S. Ormiston

You know me... I'm a sucker for any and every Jane Austen retelling. They are usually a 50/50 spread of enjoyable and disappointing. But this one really holds up. I read it a few years ago and thought it was so good that I bought a copy to keep, because I knew I'd re-read it. It's the story of what would have happened to Lizzy and Darcy if Elizabeth had accepted his original proposal. How could they have still changed enough as characters to accept each other and realized how wrong they had both been originally so that they could have been happy at the end? Ormiston does a great job of really sticking to the characters and showing their development as the novel goes on, and I really loved that. Definitely a comfort read. I might be about to head off on another Regency binge, if I can find ANY time to read the next few weeks with virtual learning, etc...

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

This is the first time I've read this book aloud with my kids, and I just love it so much. I love how the boys really respond to these stories. They really loved any parts where Nellie Ingalls gets her comeuppance--like when Laura snatches the candy away from her. I was SO CLOSE to wanting to go visit the actual town of De Smet, SD, this summer, on our drive to Utah, but I just didn't feel like driving an extra couple of days with a new baby and considering COVID was a good idea. But someday we will go!

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

I think I've read a higher percentage of Bill Bryson's books than any other author alive today, haha. I just love everything he does, and I love his funny, self-deprecating style, and his simple and easy-to-read prose. Every time I hear he has written another book, I just go get it. I really enjoyed this one, a compendium of information about our bodies and medicine and physiology, but it was slightly terrifying to listen to and to realize how little we actually know about how our bodies work and about how little medicine can do in many situations. But Bryson did an amazing job just writing about the most interesting stuff having to do with our bodies, and I really loved learning about it. It was like a very easy-to-understand crash course in anatomy instead of taking Anatomy in college. 

The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

Well, it's a rare book that I can check both the "Jane Austen/Regency" and "WWII" labels for the same book... but this one does. It takes place during WWII times but it is a fictional account of the beginning of the Jane Austen Society trying to save her home in the tiny hamlet of Chawton and make it into a Jane Austen museum. I was especially interested when I heard about this book, because I actually WENT to Jane Austen's home in Chawton last summer--although now I wish I'd gone around the town more and explored it. I loved this story and thought it was great how the author incorporated random interpretations of her books through her characters' thoughts into the story. I am starting to get annoyed with every single book having to have a gay "best friend" in it--even this one. I'm pretty sure 75% of the books I've read this year have had that. I think it's great to have representation but I'm annoyed with people just doing things to be on-trend, and this is definitely a trend.

The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott

I included the whole long subtitle there to show why I was intrigued by this book and why I thought it would be a fun book to listen to on our drive home from California. It turned out that it was only moderately interesting and really started to drag. The first few hours of the book were fascinating, about George Remus and his youth and how he got started as a bootlegger. He seemed like this larger-than-life character. However, once he got arrested and went to jail, the rest of the book seemed like a long repetition of him whining about his life and getting "brainstorms" and yelling at people. Karen Abbott really seemed proud of the fact that she was including all this real-life dialogue which was included from the actual court transcripts involving George Remus, but I feel like it would have been better if it had been a little shorter and didn't go into quite as much detail. It definitely went too long.