...Any Austen-o-Philes?

Well...I've got Pride and Prejudice up next on my reading list but I haven't had the time to read it yet. I'm not much into classics, but I'm trying to read more of it now...I'll get back to this after NaNo. :P

Actually, my novel is entitled Iam Jane Austen. It is about a young man who discovers himself in Jane Austen's heroines. Haha. I guess it s safe to say I am full pleged Austenite. Emma has to be my fave...something about falling in love with your best friend just gets to me.

im more of a..... pedophile xD jk jk jk X 1000

i once saw a film based on her book sense and sensibility and it was okay

i tried reading some of her works but ended up getting bored

Well, I'n not sure about the hard-core part, but yeah, I'm a fan of her works. Mr Darcy was my second fictional crush. hehe.

Much as I love Emma and Pride and Prejudice, I have to say my favorite Austen book would be Mansfield Park.

I'm a hard core Austenophile, Janeite, whatever else you want to call me. I went on Jane Austen themed tour last April. I have all her books in duplicate. I watched all the series and movies. I read Stephanie Barron's series on Jane being a detective. So yes, I'm totally into Austen! Glad to meet another!!!

Jane Austen is one of my favorite writers, even after I read very convincing arguments against her in college.... I read all of her books before I hit fourteen, and I have the urge to re-read them at least twice every year.

I've watched most of the movies but I haven't gotten my hands on the BBC mini-series with Colin Firth, which is supposed to be the definitive version of Pride and Prejudice.

I've read some of the pastiches and sequels too -- the older ones -- but some of them are really bad. I don't want to touch most of the newer ones that I've seen in the bookstores. I would rather re-read Austen herself. :)

Over at www.pemberley.com, someone referred to books based on Jane Austen as "a cottage industry." Heheh. That made me laugh very loudly. :)

I forgot to add that I also have a few of her biographies... I got most of them on my trip last April as many of them are out of print! And the book of her letters (edited by Dierdre Le Faye) is very insightful; gives you an idea of what she was like, how utterly witty she was, and how ahead of her time. And despite what all her detractors say (which is one reason why I don't like Virginia Woolf), she still wrote the first real novel, based on life, and none of that gothic thriller type things in her day. (Although because she read them, I also obtained Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho. It's really silly!)

The spin-offs, some of them, are okay. Linda Berdoll's though are rather smutty. I would recommend 'Me and Mr. Darcy' by Alexandra Potter. It's not a sequel but a spin-off, a tale of an Austen-o-Phile who gets to meet her Austen Dreamboy.

The only spinoffs I liked so far were by Julia Barrett (The Third Sister---after Sense and Sensibility, the story of Margaret, and Presumption---after P&P, Georgiana's story). Very well written, I thought, and not trashy at all! I'll try your suggestions, though. I've never read them. I absolutely despised Berdoll's work.

They should be called 'Sex and the Bennet Girls', not proper fiction at all!

Hehe.

Love her books. =)