The Jane Austen Book Club

I'm not at all surprised that Karen Joy Fowler's 2004 novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, became an international bestseller and was made into a movie. I checked out the trailer and was disappointed that I only could only recognise a couple of the characters, so I suspect they were cast without close reference to the book. I don't think the movie performed all that well. The novel, on the other hand, was a delight, easy to read, with subtle and not-so-subtle allusions to Jane Austen's novels, without assuming an intimate knowledge of Austen in the reader.

Fowler presents us with six characters, mostly middle aged ladies, but including one younger daughter and one bloke. The bloke, Grigg, is a lot of fun -- he is a computer geek whose first literary love is science fiction, and who has never read any Jane Austen before. The ladies' initial bristling suspicion of him is lovely, and I adored the scenes where he and Jocelyn meet -- he is at a sci fi con and she is at a dog breeders' conference, and there are some gorgeous crossed wires. 

There is a section at the back of the book where Fowler gives synopses of each Austen novel, and a hilarious collection of reviews, starting with Jane's own family and friends and moving through two hundred years' worth of admirers and detractors. I doubt anyone would approach this book unless they were already a Janeite, but fans of Austen will find comfort and pleasure in these pages. 
 

The Haunted Wood

First non-fiction blockbuster read of 2025! After a review from the reluctant dragon, I arranged to receive Sam Leith's 'history of childhood reading,' The Haunted Wood, as a Christmas present. At 550 pages, this one is a blockbuster in the physical sense as well as in terms of enjoyment.

I admit I was slightly daunted to open the list of contents and see a number of chapters devoted to early childhood reading (that is, early in history) -- fairy tales, Aesop's fables, improving tales -- but Leith keeps this section short and sweet before plunging into my real area of interest: the books I've read myself.

The classics are well covered: Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Beatrix Potter. But Leith really hits his stride with what I suspect were the favourite books of his own UK childhood, as well as my own, focusing on twentieth century writers. I did have one quibble when he described Noel Streatfeild as churning out a whole series of 'Shoes' books after the success of Ballet Shoes, though in fact only Tennis Shoes really followed that template. Several of her books were rebranded later by publishers to capitalise on Ballet Shoes -- for example, Curtain Up became Theatre Shoes. But that's being very pedantic.

Most of my favourite authors are discussed here: Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Philippa Pearce, CS Lewis, Lucy M Boston. Even Elizabeth Goudge gets a mention, albeit in a quote from JK Rowling (there's a level-headed and insightful chapter on Harry Potter). Leith rounds out the book with a quick survey of some of the best picture books. 

Even at 500+ pages, this can only be a partial overview, but I thoroughly enjoyed Leith's balance of discussing stories, authors, and broader social context. It's sent me scurrying to the library to hunt out some authors who had passed me by (like Jacqueline Wilson). The Haunted Forest is a gorgeous brick of delights. I can't wait to lend it around to my kidlit friends.
 

The Jane Austen Remedy

This book was an absolute treat! Ruth Wilson looks back over a long life (she is nearly 90) through the lens of re-reading each of Jane Austen's novels and shares her wisdom and insight, with delightful gentle humour, sharp judgment and thoughtful reflection. As she approached seventy, she realised that she needed to distance herself from her marriage and find her own space; she found herself a small cottage and a new life in the NSW Southern Highlands and reclaimed time and space for reading, thinking, gardening and friendship. It sounds idyllic in a way, and was also necessary for her mental health, but it was also painful (particularly for her family).

As Wilson reflects on Austen's life as well as her own history, we see the parallels in family, love, work, reading, and friendships, as well as more unexpected connections, for example in theatre, education and public speaking. I love books about reading and this one is exceptional, as Wilson, even after eighty odd years of reading Jane Austen's novels, discovers new ideas and interpretations. The books ends with a wonderful 'prescription' recommending the ideal ages and intervals for optimal reading and re-reading.

The Jane Austen Remedy is at once an enjoyable memoir and a wonderful examination of Jane Auten's novels. Slight spoiler: Wilson ended up moving into an apartment just upstairs from her husband's, back in Sydney, and describes them as LATs (Living Together Apart). I'm sure Jane Austen would have loved it.
 

Wild Things

 

A very long reserve queue for this book at the local library, and deservedly so. Sally Rippin is well known as a children's and YA author, and I think might be the best-selling female writer for kids in the country. In latter years she has concentrated on lively, engaging books for early readers, which have been wildly successful.

Wild Things is a very different kind of book -- both a very personal memoir of her youngest son's struggles with literacy, and a survey of the educational research and resources available in this country to help (or hinder) people in a similar situation. Not surprisingly, this is a subject very close to my heart, as my elder daughter (a couple of years older than Sally's son, in this book called 'Sam') has gone through a very similar battle with dyslexia and is still, in her third year at university, fighting to access the support she needs. Like Sally, we suffered through nightly conflicts over reading, tried various tutoring and home-based reading programs (none of which really worked), and dealt with mental health issues, including (but not limited to) severe anxiety, panic attacks, depression and low self-esteem. It seems that 'Sam' might have settled on an alternative education pathway now, but reading about his self-blaming shame and his parents' guilt was really harrowing.

At the foundation of all this suffering lies an education system that is STILL not responsive to the best research, which shows that explicit, thorough phonics instruction in the first years of school is essential to give every child the best chance of mastering literacy skills. 'Whole reading,' which basically expects children to absorb reading and writing skills through osmosis. For some kids, that's enough; for others, it simply doesn't make sense. Reading is learning a code -- from letter symbols to sounds, more or less -- which it seems absurd to expect little kids to just pick up 'naturally.' It ain't natural!

In the end (as I'm sure I've already told you more than once) what worked for my daughter was a combination of LOTS of exposure to books in the form of reading aloud and audiobooks, and becoming so familiar with the Harry Potter books that when she grabbed a volume at the age of about eleven, she was able to decode it on her own. She's always been academically ambitious for herself, and she's doing really well at university, but she still finds reading exhausting, and listening to lectures exhausting -- what works for her is watching online, where she can stop the recording and take notes at her own pace (thank God for Covid lockdowns and online learning). But it's all very hard work for her, and it always will be. It would be great if she could actually get the note-taker that the university support office promised her last year, but it looks like it's not going to happen. I hope she's going to be okay, and I hope 'Sam' will be okay, and I hope all the kids who are still being let down by our educators and politicians and the inadequate teacher training and inadequate classroom resources, will all be okay.

EDIT to add that Sally Rippin was also a Third Culture Kid, and discusses her sense of not-belonging in a way that other TCKs will find very recognisable.

Books That Saved My Life

 I've always enjoyed Michael McGirr's book reviews in The Age, and also Bypass: The Story of a Road, a gentle road trip. He is a humane, compassionate and thoughtful commentator, a man of faith who teaches English at a boys' private school (lucky boys).

In Books That Saved My Life, McGirr reflects on forty books, in short chapters of a few pages each, that have touched or inspired him over a lifetime of reading, some fiction, some poetry, some memoir, some non-fiction. He interweaves his observations with some biographical information about each author and some personal anecdotes about the place of each book in his life, how he discovered it, or the person who introduced him to it. It's like reading a bunch of pithy newspaper columns, perfectly weighted and structured, or taking recommendations from a trusted and well-read friend.

There are lots of books here that I'd never heard of, as well as plenty of old friends, who I enjoyed viewing in a fresh light, from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Heart of Darkness (blerch) -- plenty of female authors, too. If you were embarking on a serious reading program, you could do worse than take Michael McGirr as your guide.

Storytime

Birthday present! And a joyous one this time.

I cannot get enough of these books about childhood reading. I gulp them down like lollies from the jar. In Storytime, Jane Sullivan (who writes a column about books for The Saturday Age) goes back to a dozen of her childhood favourites, first recalling what them special, then re-reading to see how accurate her memories were, and giving some adult context and reflection. So we have chapters on E. Nesbit, the Famous Five, Wind in the Willows, Little Women and more.

There was only two of Jane's choices that I'd never read. One was a collection of horror stories and the other was a comic strip, "The Silent Three," which appeared in School Friend magazine. Well, would you believe, I have several 1950s School Friend annuals decorating my living room (thank you, Judy Ballantyne!) so I was able to check out "The Silent Three" for myself, with their improbable hooded robes and their plucky ivy-climbing and ingenious riddle-solving. Utterly ludicrous but I could definitely see the appeal.

I knew I had to buy this book when I heard Jane mention a book she was sure no one else in the world had read: Gillian Avery's The Warden's Niece, which was a particular favourite of my own. Apparently the illustrator who produced the distinctive ink-blotted pictures for the book lived at the bottom of child-Jane's garden, and gave her a copy! I adored Maria's adventures in 19th century Oxford (which paved the way for all the other Oxford-set books I was to love in the future) and her detective work in company with the boys next door and their embarrassing bean pole of a tutor, Mr Copplestone. I completely agree with Jane that Gillian Avery is overdue for rediscovery.

The one book we disagree on is Little Women, which I loved and Jane couldn't stand. I fell in love with the March family and I was charmed by their playacting and mock-Pickwick newspaper, which grated on Jane's nerves. But hey, it's so dull when we all agree.

I tried to make Storytime last longer, but I couldn't help myself -- finished it in two days.