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4.44 AVERAGE
4.44 AVERAGE
I’m so glad to have picked up this book! The discussion about the canon and how critic’s opinions circulate was very interesting. As a lover of Austen’s work, it was great to get to know these writers she read and who influenced her. I hadn’t heard of many of them before and have not read any of their books, but I definitely want to now! It was also interesting to learn about the rare book industry. The best read of the month for sure!
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Absolutely LOVED this book. In Jane Austen's bookshelf it takes us through the not so known influential authors of the very well known Jane Austen. As someone who doesn't know much about classic author this is a deep dive on all the women that influenced and inspired her. This book is also written by a book collector which gave unique insight to each author by the way the enjoyed the books and what they learned versus a critique of the books.
thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this ARC!
thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this ARC!
informative
medium-paced
A moving and sensitive journey through the world of women writers contemporary to Austen and in influence to her own writing. Like the author, I found myself moved to explore their work to see how Austen was shaped into the beloved storyteller we now revere. The plight of the feminine voice and its suppression should come as no surprise, but the fact that Austen was given any notice at all is a miracle. I loved the excellent scholarship, the obvious delight in the research, and the details about the rare book industry.
Thank you to NetGalley for my digital copy. These opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley for my digital copy. These opinions are my own.
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
My favourite book of the year so far.
Rebecca Romney goes on a quest to discover the authors Jane Austen loved. She covers a different author per chapter, and gives a potted biography of each as well as her thoughts on their books and how they ended up being dropped from the literary canon. She also details her purchases as she is a book collector and rare book dealer.
This was a brilliant book and I ended up adding around 15 late eighteenth/early nineteenth century classics to my TBR. As a reader rather than a collector I was thrilled to discover how many of them are available as free ebooks - I'm an unashamed ebook person and definitely more of a reader than a collector unless you count digital material as collecting. I was interested in the collecting side as Romney wrote about it, though: she writes so entertainingly that the whole book was engaging.
If you have any interest in Jane Austen then definitely read this book. If you wish she had written more, read this book. If you like memoirs, read this book. Basically just read it if any small thing appeals to you!
Rebecca Romney goes on a quest to discover the authors Jane Austen loved. She covers a different author per chapter, and gives a potted biography of each as well as her thoughts on their books and how they ended up being dropped from the literary canon. She also details her purchases as she is a book collector and rare book dealer.
This was a brilliant book and I ended up adding around 15 late eighteenth/early nineteenth century classics to my TBR. As a reader rather than a collector I was thrilled to discover how many of them are available as free ebooks - I'm an unashamed ebook person and definitely more of a reader than a collector unless you count digital material as collecting. I was interested in the collecting side as Romney wrote about it, though: she writes so entertainingly that the whole book was engaging.
If you have any interest in Jane Austen then definitely read this book. If you wish she had written more, read this book. If you like memoirs, read this book. Basically just read it if any small thing appeals to you!
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Thank you to @_simonelement #ElementalReaders for my #gifted copy. My opinions are my own.
If you have ever wished that Jane Austen had written more, then you need to hear what Rebecca Romney discovered: there’s a 40-year gap from which female fiction writers have been excised, called "The Great Forgetting." Authors whose names you will recognize from Austen's own works were writing and influencing society and Austen's novels. Austen isn't “the first great woman writer in English” as we've been taught--she's just the first female writer whose work has been accepted into the English canon. Here Romney (a rare book collector and dealer) recounts in elevated yet personal prose her journey to collect important works by the authors that influenced Austen, not only for the stories they contain but for the stories of the physical books themselves. Each chapter tells the story of one of eight different women writers who Austen read--authors whose works would have appeared on her "bookshelf." And boy, was this a dangerous book because it seriously added to my TBR list. The stories about these women were fascinating--they led fascinating lives, and wrote works that not only engaged society at the time but also reflected it (and now preserve it in ways that are still interesting to readers today). The ability to capture and convey the universality of the human experience isn't limited to male authors, yet somehow women's accomplishments have systematically been left out of standard learning tools. I found that more and more frustrating the more I read in this book, and I appreciate the book for itself but also for adding to my ability to value these underappreciated female writers who deserve their own place in the English canon.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Element for an Advanced Reader Copy - pub date 2/18/2025. For me, one of the best indications of a great non-fiction book is that you close it to find you have an entire list of Further Reading that has miraculously appeared on your scratch pad... and then you actually GO AND FIND THE FURTHER READING. Romney's Jane Austen's Bookshelf nails this in spades. Some of the female authors mentioned were ones I knew. What self-respecting literary dork was unaware of the name Ann Radcliffe, after all? But the fascinating lives and works belonging to the likes of Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, etc? Those were a complete mystery to me.
Starting from the premise of "I love Jane Austen and surely she cannot have developed her writing in a vacuum and why are there these strange gaps in the canon for those years," Rebecca Romney uses all of her knowledge about books and publishing and literature to search out the mysterious writers who inspired and encouraged and, in some cases, surpassed Jane Austen as a Great Female Novelist. The book is part mystery, part literary critique, part biographies, and all well researched and so much fun to read. It's also aggravating to read because, just like Romney, I found myself hissing at random (mostly male) critics who decided that, while there could be multiple exceptional male authors, there could only be ONE exceptional female at any time and Austen was IT. I imagine Austen herself would have had something brilliant and cutting to say on the topic. So would her favorite authors who I came to meet and admire in this book.
Like I said, the ultimate praise I can give a non-fiction book is that I have a list to go Read More and this one nailed that. In fact, while my head and heart are excited for the trip, my wallet is already starting to groan because, not only did Romney get me excited about new authors but her professional eye and descriptions made me want particular editions. Whoops! Thank you so much. I really mean that.
Starting from the premise of "I love Jane Austen and surely she cannot have developed her writing in a vacuum and why are there these strange gaps in the canon for those years," Rebecca Romney uses all of her knowledge about books and publishing and literature to search out the mysterious writers who inspired and encouraged and, in some cases, surpassed Jane Austen as a Great Female Novelist. The book is part mystery, part literary critique, part biographies, and all well researched and so much fun to read. It's also aggravating to read because, just like Romney, I found myself hissing at random (mostly male) critics who decided that, while there could be multiple exceptional male authors, there could only be ONE exceptional female at any time and Austen was IT. I imagine Austen herself would have had something brilliant and cutting to say on the topic. So would her favorite authors who I came to meet and admire in this book.
Like I said, the ultimate praise I can give a non-fiction book is that I have a list to go Read More and this one nailed that. In fact, while my head and heart are excited for the trip, my wallet is already starting to groan because, not only did Romney get me excited about new authors but her professional eye and descriptions made me want particular editions. Whoops! Thank you so much. I really mean that.