Jane Austen, Daisy Jones & Goodreads

The person in the middle of this cover is blue. Not like her clothes or metaphorically speaking blue because Knightley doesn’t love her but blue and it took me like a week of picking it up and reading before I finally thought, “Hey that person is blue!”

But this ramble isn’t so much about blueness as the big important questions in a readers life like… If Jane Austen was alive today what would she read?

This mostly started because of those emails from Goodreads you get after you finish a book:

Write a review.

Ha. Obviously Goodreads doesn’t know me that well or they’d know there’s only like a 5% chance of that happenings.

For some reason I get these emails and my automatic thoughts are:

I should go outside.

I should buy new books.

But I’ve actually been really good at not buying a lot of books this year (go me!) and I avoid going outside anyway so those are both out.

Of all of these books I couldn’t help but think only Little Women strikes me as being Emma like.

I mean I know these aren’t straight recommendations but I can’t imagine telling someone oh, you liked Emma you know what you should read next… Anna Karenina! It’s a leap you know?

But what really surprised me was I can follow Jane Austen on Goodreads?

Which got me thinking what if Jane Austen were alive and actually on Goodreads and she sent one of those polls oh, I can’t decide what to read next help me!

What would be on that list?

I think she’d be all about contemporaries and probably really enjoy Julie Murphy:

Whose characters are flawed, realistic and sometimes not even likable but always have a life lesson to learn. After all Austen once said about Emma, “no one but myself will much like her.”

In the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma I actually liked her. I liked her in the book as well weirdly until the end where once everything began to be settled she felt somehow like she was getting colder as a character.

I also think Austen would like books like:

Which following the theme of me missing things did we know Sam Claflin was cast as the male lead in the Amazon series opposite Riley Keough?

I didn’t even know this was going to be a series! I didn’t love the book but I think it could make an amazing show and we’ll be getting the music! I can’t wait!

The Women’s Prize for Fiction long list was also announced. Which is relevant because I think Jane Austen would totally be a judge on all these book prizes. I had thought I learned my lesson a couple of years back when I tried to read the Booker Long List but actually all the books on this one sound really good and they all went on my TBR. (I actually own two of them already so added incentive to read them!)

What was this about?

Emma.

I’m glad I read it. I liked it a lot actually up into the end. Frank Churchill gets away with too much but I thought that about the movie too and also the whole…

“I’ve loved you since you were at least 13.”

Me: Ew. Way to ruin it man.

Hopefully the next thing I can do is see the new adaptation which is why I finally, finally picked up the book!

Recommend: Yes.

I think Emma’s actually a good choice for people just getting into classic’s as well. Give them Emma and then, apparently, give them Anna Karenina!