Bought to replace lost bookring.

List of remaining participants:

1. laurarn (USA - OK) - no reply so skipped
2. shpriz1 (USA - NY) *
3. Rrrcaron (USA - NH) *
4. tyvmdear (Canada - Manitoba) *
5. lily43 (Australia) * - no reply so skipped
6. jubby (Australia) *
7. lesezeichen (Germany) *
8. elhamisabel (Germany) *
9. nikel27 (Germany ) *
10. polly-w (Germany) *
11. martinburo (Germany ) *
12. daemonwolf (UK)
13. raeliz64 (UK) *
14. Nell-Lu (UK)
15. back to me - Kernow8 (UK) <----------------- current reader

The last book went missing en route to laurarn. I've asked for her address to kick off this ring again.

Sent to shpriz1 - enjoy!

Received it today. Will start on this book right away

I gave it a 4 only because this book is more like a literary criticism a biography of Jane Austen. I was curious what this book will be about when on one of the first pages Carol Shields confessed that a very little is known about the life of Jane Austen (I don't think that's a good way to start any biography book, but what do I know?) In the end, this book was nothing but the analysis of Jane Austen's novels and her characters, which is absolutely fine if someone is looking for that information. I wasn't looking for that, I was expecting facts about Ms. Austen, insted, I got facts about everyone she created.
=========================================================================================================
E-mailed Rrrcaron for the address.

I received this book in the mail a couple of days ago. I have a few rings ahead of it, but I hope to get to it soon.
Ruth

I really enjoyed reading this book. I have tried reading a few of Jane Austins books, but I found them too slow. Now I plan on trying them again. Reading about her lifeand the creation of her characters will make me look at the books in a whole new perspective. Thanks for sharing this delightful read, and sorry I held the book so long. Have pmed tvmydear for an address, and will mail as soon as I receive one.
Ruth

Arrived today. Will get read ASAP so it can continue its journey.

Thanks for sharing this book with us all.

Finished reading late last night or early this morning (which ever way you want to look at it).

Carol Shields has written a very interesting and throughly enjoyable biography. I really liked the way that she kept asking questions that there was no answer to. There is so much about Jane Austen's live that is and will forever be a mystery and I liked the fact that she didn't try to answer those.

What this book has done for me, is make me want to re-read her books. I think I will look at the books a lot differently now.

Thank you for sharing this book with me.
I will mail to lily43 as soon as I get an address.

UPDATE Sept 5th, 2005
I have not heard from lily43 so I have now PM'd jubby for an address.

Now on its way to jubby. Should take about a month to get there.

Received in the post last week, but have been a little bit busy to journal - but never too busy to read!

I am rather enjoying this little book. Have 30 pages to go, but in the process of PMing lesezeichen, so that I can send it on it's merry way.

Thank you Kernow8 for sharing this book with me. It has been a rather good read. But I am feeling a little depressed - she wrote Sense and sensibility when she was 21 years old! I will never be able to write anything of that standard, even when I am 121!
But then again, a friend tells me that the average life expectancy for a woman at those times was 45, so she was really in her mid-life... - well, that's what I'm going to believe.

Thank you again.

Finished book.

Rather enjoyed it. Nice and light, and not bogged down with details. Will definately potter off and read all 6 of her books - if I ever get the time.
I've seen all the BBC productions though. Surely they count?

Anyway, I have tried PMing lesezeichen (twice now), and no response. So have PMed elhamisabel for her postal details.

Hope that is alright. I want to keep this little bookring going.

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted to lesezeichen today.

Wow that was fast! And with a RABCK as well. Thank you! I won't be long...

I immensely enjoyed reading the book. Having been an Austen fan for 20 years or so I realized I know almost nothing about her life. Due to the fact that Jane's life is only scantily documented, the book is not without speculation, but the author always marks clearly what is known and what she thinks might be. And, for my part, I felt that most of her interpretations made sense. In addition Carol Shields is a renowned writer in her own right and thus this literary biography has a high stylistic and esthetical value. In fact it is somehow paradoxal, although Jane's life was fairly unenventful I sometimes had the impression I was reading a highly intriguing novel. And I'm sure when rereading Austen's novels the next time I will see them partly in a new light...

I recieved it in today's mail. Thank you lesezeichen and Kernow8.
I've got one or two other rings in fron of this but I'll try ro be as quick as possible.

----------

EDIT: 16th Oct. 2005

To be perfectly honest with you this book is crap. All these years I refrained from reading biographies about Jane Austen because I somehow *knew* that they wouldn't tell me more or if so, not necessarily stuff about her that I wished to know in the first place. And it's the same with this book. Thank God it was only 170 pages. Why? Because everyone knows there is not much left to tell us about her life and her ideas and so on but what she wrote in her letters to her sister and family and friends. So here's evidence that Jane Austen got a portable writing desk from her father for her 19th Birthday. Good. But then Carol Shields writes: "The gift may have represented a kind of permission on her parent's part, exactly what all young writers need if they are to continue in their pursuit. Or it may have been a suggestion - fatherly, kindley - that she distract herself by attention to her desk rather than to the wild flirting he had wittnessed or heard about at recent balls." Or, if *I* may suggest something, her father knew she liked that kind of desk and out of love for her, he bought her this present...???!!! Carol Shield is doing these kind of speculations all the time. I've never read any other JA biographies but I strongly suspect she's not the first and will certainly not be the last to use this kind of 'device' but I just can't stand it. I'm not saying that a biographer should never speculate. They should, if they like but not to the extent that Carol Shields does. Maybe that's one of the reasons I like reading biographies about living or not very long deceased personalities. There are enough facts about them to stop people speculating and above all interpreting to much into their action.
I was utterly displeased with Carol Shields's way of writing a biography about Jane Austen. Using the very few facts about her and giving them far fetched interpretations made me not wanting to read the book on more than just a few times.
And it's not even a good biography in the sense of a biography. It's more of interpreting her works by way of using the few facts of JA's life. She's also contradicting herself at times during the book.

Really, this was not at all to my liking. Thank God it was so short.

----------

EDIT: 20.10.05

As of today it's on its way to nickel27.

arrived safe at my house, thanks again

update:
thanks for sharing this book with me.
I love reading about Jane Austen, one of my favourite author's.

RELEASE NOTES:

EnJoy the book as I did!!!

The book arrived last Saturday and I could finally pick it up today. Thanks for sharing it with us, Kernow8!
Meanwhile 3 other bookrings have arrived here, so it has to rest a little bit, but I'll do my best...

This was a nice little book, but as I have already read a few other books about Jane Austen's life and time, there wasn't actually anything new in it. Nevertheless, it's nice to read these facts again after some time... I agree with one of the other journalers that there are too many speculations and "mights" and "mays" in it. But apart from that it is written quite nicely and I liked how all Jane Austen's heroines were "analyzed", especially Emma and Elizabeth Bennett.

As soon as I get the next address, I will send it on.

Thanks. I expect to read this in the next three weeks.

My sister had given me the manuscript of her first novel during the Christmas holidays, and I had reread it just before reading this, so I had been thinking about the process of writing a lot anyway. In addition, it was interesting to read CS's ideas on the way a writer's life informs her novels, and conversely, what a novel can and can't tell us about the writer. And in the case of Jane Austen, about whom so little is known for sure, that there is only a subclass of biographical facts and speculation that is worthwhile for a biography on a long dead writer. That is, that we should limit ourselves to that part of JA's life that stands in relation to what she has written (both fictionally and in her letters) and that this is both a natural limit when a living writer writes the biography of a long dead writer, but also that this is the appropriate limit in the relationship between the readers and the writer. I am not convinced that the last sentence accurately reflects what CS said, or even what I got out of what she said. It makes me quite dizzy to try and figure if this constitutes and infinite progression of self-reference. In any case, I enjoyed reading this.

"By how many degrees is mimetic art separated from the seen, felt and heard field of our own being? How closely do we desire an overlapping of the real and the projected"

" 'You know how interesting the purchase of a spongecake is to me' "

I sent this on to daemonwolf.

Arrived safely on Saturday. Looks interesting.

Read and reviewed on my book journal.

RELEASE NOTES:

Off to the next person in the ring.

Received today. Thanks very much.

Well, it wasn't bad, but I agree with some of the previous readers that there is too much speculation and not enough fact.

Posted to Nell-Lu today.

This just arrived - thanks raeliz64, and thanks Kernow8 for starting the ring. I love both Carol Shields and Jane Austen, so have been looking forward to this. I'm half-way through a book at the moment; I'll finish it tonight and start Jane Austen tomorrow.

Lovely! I enjoyed this a great deal. It isn't really a biography, but it is a beautiful meditation on the subject of writing, by a very good writer. I found that Carol Shields' comments on Jane Austen said a lot about Shields and her novels. It was also fascinating to have a writer's insight into the life of another writer. And, it is good to be reminded of how much we don't know about the past - because Jane Austen is so popular, and the Jane Austen heritage industry is so well established, I hadn't realised that so few facts were actually known.

Thanks Kernow8. This is ready to be sent back to you just as soon as I have an address - I'll PM you again.

Jane Austen is on its way home...

Back home! Thanks everyone - I've enjoyed reading all your comments and am looking forward to reading the book myself sometime soon.