When I saw this book at the bookshop I couldn't wait to buy it. It seemed a really interesting concept and it was highly praised.

Now that I've read it I must admit that I never really found a connection.

First of all I realized I don't really remember Jane Austen's books so well. So I had problems understanding the nuances when the bookclub talked about the different novels.

Then I didn't really warm to the characters of the book. All of them were more or less interesting, but the book only gives each of them a short chapter and therefore only a little story. I think I would have liked to get to know them better.

I guess it's just one of these books that a lot of people like but I don't ;-)

I would really like to know what others like or don't like about this book, so I'll send it of on a hopefully adventurous ray...

1. KatColorado
2. elhamisabel (Germany)
3. heydie (Germany)
4. Tiikeri (Germany)
5. Dani75 (Germany)
6. te-sa (Germany)
7. linguistkris (Germany)
8. Ophelia1 (Germany)

9. FiBe (United Kingdom)
10. spiderchic (United Kingdom)
11. starfarer (Germany)

12.wweige (Germany)<--- it's here

13.sintra (Germany)
14.Charlaya (Germany)
15.ink-heart (Germany)
16.dschinny (Germany)
17.polly-w (Germany)
18. Leseschaf (Germany)
19. concertina8 (Austria)
20. CatrionaMacLeod (Switzerland)

RELEASE NOTES:

This bookray will start in a few minutes. I hope it will always travel safely and have a lot of exciting adventures...

Recieved it today. Finally! ;D

Will read as soon as possible and send on.

Thanks again, KatColorado!

I've finished it (couldn't resist).
Mhm... what do I think about it?
I had expected more, to be honest. But that may be due to the fact that I wanted to read it ever since it came out.

I think some more references to Austen's novels would have been better. It seemed to me that the author only picked up random fact out of each book to web it into her own story and to make it more attractive to readers.
The characters themselves were only described a little but you didn't get to know them better. I could have coped with more pages if there would have been more of both the things mentioned.

Overall I'd give it an OK.
I can't tell you why, but while I was reading it I had to thing of "Lovely Bones" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven".

Anyway, I finished it in time for the Meet Up in Frankfurt and gave it to Heydie.

I received the book yesterday from elhamisabel at the meet-up in Frankfurt and I'm glad looking forward to reading it :o)))

Ich habe das Buch gestern von elhamisabel auf dem meet-up in Frankfurt bekommen und freue mich schon sehr aufs Lesen :o)))

Edit 2005-03-14:
Leider muss ich nach 40 Seiten aufgeben :o(
Mein Englisch ist mittlerweile so schlecht geworden, dass ich zwar die einzelnen Worte verstehe, aber nicht mehr das Wichtige dazwischen. Es hat einfach keinen Sinn... jetzt bin ich ein wenig traurig und schicke es weiter.

I got the book last week, thank you very much.
Will be read as soon as I'm through with Hesse's "Siddharta".

I had expected more from this book ... My impression is that the "Jane Austen"-things were just put in to attract readers - which worked in my case. They don't really have an impact on the story and could have left out as well. There's even a small mistake concerning "Sense and Sensibility" and the author's summaries of the novels at the end of the book sound as if she's not very fond of Austen's work after all.

The characters are interesting but their description is too superficial to really get into their stories. It could have been a great novel if the author had concentrated on that, especially the relationships between the characters.

This novel gave me a nice time but didn't reach Austen's level at all.

Will be sent to Dani75 tomorrow.

Received the book today. Will start reading as soon as possible. I am really looking forward to it!

Ooops! - Wanted to contact the next person on the list and found I hadn't even journaled it yet. Most awfully sorry!
Anyway: I have received it some time ago, have read it and am now ready to send it on.

It's a nice little book, but I'm afraid that's all that can be said for it. I did not expect it to be on a par with Austen, but had hoped for it to be a bit more - well - "Austenish" in style, character, whatever. No such luck. What with the rather flat characters and fairly uninspiring plot developement it was not more than an entertaining read. Which is really unfortunate, as the idea as such is quite good.

Hurra, darauf habe ich mich ja schon gefreut!!! *doppelfreu* Und die neidischen Blicke gestern beim Meet-Up! ;)

RELEASE NOTES:

Gave it to linguistkris at yesterday's meetup in Düsseldorf. Enjoy!

EDIT: Aaargh, aaargh! Just saw that linguistkris has already journaled it!

'Tschuldigung, ich war so im Journalfieber bei dem dicken Stapel, den ich angeschleppt hatte, da hat es mich einfach überkommen! :(

Quite a sweet book, really! While I had been looking forward to this quite a bit, I was also rather wary of disappointment, as the comments of most of you indicated this wasn't really the book you had hoped it would be.
I think you were perfectly right: this book isn't a lot about Jane Austen or her books, and while Fowler probably likes Austen quite a bit and made the novel her namesake for a reason, Austen could very easily be substituted by pretty much any other author with a knack for happy endings and people hooking up.
But I guess that's perfectly fine and even quite legitimate (I should pick a name that would up my sales too, if I were an author!), as the result is a solid piece of clever chick lit. The overwhelming majority of the protagonists are women, and for the one important male character, women are an important force in his life, so I reckon this is very much a "girls' book" (coincidentally, just what many people think of Austen, too). Not a bad one, though, and the issues that the heroines face are somewhat beyond the Bridget-Jones scope of dieting and dating. I wouldn't necessarily say this was a very deep book, but it is clever entertainment, and reads effortlessly and enjoyably. I do agree with those of you, though, who said it was all a bit superficial and the characters were shallow: Since every character is only focussed on in "their" own chapter (usually the chapter in which that person hosts the book club, when the events of the club session and episodes from the host(ess)'s biography are contrasted), they do remain rather sketchy.

Now, to make a long story short: A good and very readable book, but there isn't a horrible lot of Austen in there. The interesting set up of the plot could have stretched a lot further, and some potential was wasted by keeping the characters and their stories so sketchy. What I liked best: The questions for discussion ot the very back of the book (p. 284). There is something very fun and meta-textual going on when the characters of a novel ask you questions about "their" book, and hilarious questions, matched to their personalities, at that. Funny enough, I felt reminded of Lemony Snicket and the ways that his books play with the reality of the story and the characters. What I kept wondering but never found out: Who is the narrator? The book club members are always "we" or "us", but I never really found an "I"!

RELEASE NOTES:

Mit einem ganzen Haufen imaginärer gedrückter Daumen für die Prüfung zusammen (echte machen so eine Sauerei! ;)) in einen Umschlag gesteckt und nach Kleve zu Ophelia1 geschickt.

The book arrived today. Thanks to linguistkris for sending it :-)
I have to apologize already that this book has to stay with me for a couple of weeks. I have examinations coming up in the beginning of November and as much as I am looking forward to reading this book I have to have time to concentrate on reading english. My last test will be on November 17...

November 21:
Sorry to say so, but I did not like this book very much. It was ok to read, but this is about the best I can say. Very long-winded and kind of really boring during wide parts... Somehow it didn't seem enough of an effort to take Jane Austen as a hang up for the story. Personally, I missed more discussions about Austens novels and wasn't very interested in the personal stories of the club members. The comparisons between the life of the members and Austens stories seemed constructed. Certainly, I never wanted "to eat this novel" as it says on the cover.

Hopefully the next readers will have more fun with this ;-)
The book will be on its way to FiBe now.

Received a couple of days ago and started already. Will hopefully finish quite soon.

Hmm the positives............. well it's a quick read and the story is ok. The problem is that I didn't really care about any of the characters and the story just seemed a little superficial. There was no depth to any of it.

It's a shame really as I think done well it could have been a really good book.

Thanks for doing the ray though KatColorado and letting me take part!

Going on to spiderchic today.

RELEASE NOTES:

Received yesterday shall get onto it straight away.

Finished this last night. It was what I call a "nice" book. Nothing spectacular about it but easy to read and quite enjoyable.
Thank you for sharing.
Shall PM juliebarreto for her address.

juliebarreto and katayoun have both asked to be skipped so am waiting to hear back from starfarer now.

Sent to starfarer today

Received it! Thanks very much to spiderchic for sending it! I have just begun to read, let's see how much time there is on the Christmas holidays for reading...

Forgot my journal, sorry, but after all I had no time to read this book to its end. Its on its way to the next reader on the list.

Ist schon vor ein paar Tagen angekommen, hab allerdings zu rZeit kein eigenes Inet, darum die verspätung

The book arrived today, slightly unexpected. I'm afraid it might have to wait a little while because I've got two other bookrings here at the moment. But I'll do my best.

Oops, sorry about the delay! I meant to write this journal entry ages ago but then some real-life chaos got in the way and I forgot about this book altogether.

I pretty much agree with linguistkris (although I don't think Jane Austen could easily be substituted with another writer - there is that special sort of Austen devotee and I just can't imagine the same reaction to Grigg's confession about never having read Pride and Prejudice with any other novelist...) - the book was really enjoyable even though it's sort of chick lit but not in a dating-and-dieting way which I personally despise. Maybe one of the reasons why I enjoyed it is the fact that I'm not a great Austen devotee and didn't really expect anything from this book other than light entertainment. The story isn't terribly deep but there are some funny and clever observations in there. I liked Jocelyn and her dogs for example and I thought the episode at the convention(s) was just hilarious. The ending was a little weak but the characters' questions made up for it.

The one thing that really annoyed me about this book was the narrative perspective. It's not clever, it's not original, it's just bad. I have to take one star for that bloody "we".

Thanks a lot for this bookring! Since Charlaya already got the book herself I'll ask ink-heart for her address.

Thank you sintra and Kat! I am really looking forward to reading this. Looks like an utterly relaxing read. :o)

Well this wasn't exactly bad but not at all what I had hoped for. Not enough Austen in here (or only some very obvious observations) and the links between Austen's characters and the book club people were very weak to say the least. Or weren't there supposed to be any links? Or did I miss something? - That's what I was asking myself repeatedly while reading the book because I was waiting for something thought-provoking or at least surprising ... Well.

The novel is on its way to dschinny now. Enjoy!

Arrived today, thank you. I had already forgotten about this ray...

28.5.: Well, it was a quick read and quite enjoyable. Why it was called "The Jane Austen Book Club" I don't know. As elham said, the author just picked random things out of te books so it might as well have been a "Charlotte Bronte Book Club" or even a "Terry Pratchett Book Club" - not that I have read any Pratchett books ;-)) I expected more connections between the lives of the featured people and the books.

Will continue its journey when I have the address of polly-w.
7.6.: On its way today.

Has arrived today. I am really looking forward to reading it but I have to finish one or two other books before..
Thanks for sharing and for sending this book!

I liked this book quite much and I did not expect "more Jane Austen" in it. I found it quite amusing how they discussed Jane Austen's novels (which I have read all and read again from time to time) and the different characters in the novels. I also liked the members of the bookclub - all of them. They were all somehow special but nevertheless they were quite realistic and not "exaggerated".
Thank you very much for this ring. I have already asked for the next address and will send the book on as soon as possible.

Leseschaf does not want this ring because meanwhile she has her own copy of this book. I am waiting for the next address.

...and another bookring. I''m in the middle of a book(ring) at the moment, but should be finished rather quickly - so it shouldn''t take too long before I get to this one.

All right, here comes the big confession: I am not a Jane Austen fan. Actually, I have never even managed to read one of her books....I tried once - it might have been 'Pride and Prejudice' - but what little I read of this didn't leave much of an impression.

What's more - I don't have any desire to read any of her books. This one here did not make me want to, if anything it made me want to read Austen even less. Courtship, marriage, good/bad matches - not my cup of tea.

My point is...I didn't have any expectations from this book. Tabula rasa so to say. That was probably a good thing because I could take the book for what I believe it is - a lovely story about a bunch of people that share one interest (and one interest, only, apparently): Jane Austen. I enjoyed reading it, because it was not asking much and still managed to give me enough interesting stories about the individual characters to go on.

Of course, the characters were not given much depth but the book covers only 6 months of their lives, so how much can you actually expect to learn about them? They were likable enough, exept for Prudie (for me), who would probably just annoy me if I knew her.

What bugged me a bit was the constant use of "we". It gave the feeling of an invisible book club member, because obviously it was none of the others speaking. This was probably to give the reader the feeling of being included in the circle, but it didn't work for me.

Anyway, enjoyable read. Don't expect too much insight into Jane Austen's work, though.

CatrionaMacLeod asked to be dropped from the list, so the book is free to go to a good home. I will either look for it on Cliff's wishlist or realease it at an English language meetup or the English language OBCZ here in Vienna.

RELEASE NOTES:

English meetup

picked up at the English meet-up. Am a Jane Austen fan, have studied her works, have written more papers on her than I can count...so maybe that's why I find this flat, flat, flat. I'm about 1/2 way through and have been bored every page along the way. The author doesn't develop the theme enough; it is mere snapshots of characters in a particular setting. The "Jane Austen" in the title is what's keeping me gamely ploughly through but...I'm....fa..d...ing...

maybe I'll just give up and send it on its merry way in a wild release.

but then again it took me 4 years to get through the first 4 chapters of "The Life of Pi" then I suddenly fell in love with it and read the whole thing from the beginning again in one night. Don't think this is the same caliber of writing by a long shot though.