Today is the birthday of Jane Austen. It has been 250 years since Jane Austen was born. 250 years since one of my favourite authors entered the world!
The works of Jane Austen are some of my all time favourite books and ones that I have read over and over again. Over the years my favourite Jane Austen book has changed and I imagine it will continue to change. At first Sense and Sensibility was my favourite, then Pride and Prejudice and now it is Persuasion.
Last week I went on the tour at the Jane Austen centre in Bath again and absolutely loved it. If I was lucky enough to live in Bath I would definitely try and get a job there.
Jane Austen started my love of classics and she is my ultimate comfort author who I will always return to. So thank you Jane Austen. Thank you for inspiring my love of reading and always been there when I need a comfort read.
‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world a large favour!’
It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which comes back to haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the Colonel is found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.
The first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction.
Review
I finally got to a Miss Marple novel in my Agatha Christie challenge. I have been really excited about reading the Miss Marple books because I always loved the TV series. I find Miss Marple the perfect cosy mystery.
Leonard Clement is the local vicar of St Mary Mead and is married to Griselda. St Mary Mead is a sleepy little hamlet where everyone knows everyone’s business and Leonard is regularly asked for guidance on all matters.
Colonel Protheroe has been found dead in Leonard’s study. However, as Miss Marple soon begins to realise almost everyone in St Mary Mead had a motive to kill the Colonel. The police who are assigned to the case are quite useless which is a typical trait of a Christie book and one that I always look forward to because I always have a good laugh at the mistakes the police make.
Miss Marple is on the case and she clearly already has an idea who committed the murder but she tells Leonard that she has seven suspects. Miss Marple annoys the police and always appears as a little old lady who is everyone’s neighbour and friend. Nobody sees her as a threat.
I did enjoy this book but I didn’t find it up to Christie’s usual standards. Considering this novel is a Miss Marple book I did find that Miss Marple was hardly in it and would have liked to have seen more of her. Griselda rather got on my nerves and I found her rather useless and not the best wife for a vicar. I really hope my next Miss Marple book features more of Miss Marple. I give this book 3 out of 5 Dragons.
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About the author
Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. She also wrote the world’s longest running play, The Mousetrap. She also wrote 6 novels under the name Mary Westmacott.
Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.
But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favourite novels.
Review
As soon as I saw this book I put it on my birthday list and my wonderful husband bought it for me. It was on my TBR pile for just over a week before I started reading it as I couldn’t resist.
I absolutely loved this book and could not put it down. The first thing I liked was the layout of the book as each chapter focuses on one of the authors that Jane Austen was known to have read. We get a good history of each author and what books, plays or collections of poems they wrote. We also learn about Jane Austen and how her life linked with these authors. I also really enjoyed learning about the reasons these women chose to write.
The other element I enjoyed was learning a bit about the rare book trade and how rare book dealers work. I enjoyed learning about the different editions that Romney collected, how she hunted them down, purchased them and appreciated them. I loved learning about rare editions of Austen novels and first editions of the authors focused on in the book. I also loved learning about how books were published in Austen’s time, how the print runs ran and what the paper and binding was made out of.
The only problem I had with this book was that as soon as I started reading this book I started a list of all the books these authors had written with the plan of reading them myself one day. This means my wish list of books has grown hugely. I have actually read a few off the list because I had an amazing English teacher who introduced me to the work of Ann Radcliffe and I became a fan of Frances Burney earlier this year. However, there are still plenty of books left for me to collect and read. I give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons and it is definitely one of my top reads of 2025.
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About the author
Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and the cofounder of Type Punch Matrix, a rare book company based in Washington, DC. She is the rare books specialist on the HISTORY Channel’s show Pawn Stars, and the cofounder of the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. She is a generalist rare book dealer, handling works in all fields, from first editions of Jane Austen to science fiction paperbacks. Her work as a bookseller or writer has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Variety, The Paris Review, and more. In 2019, she was featured in the documentary on the rare book trade, The Booksellers. She is on the Board of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota).
November wasn’t such a good reading month for me but what I did read I really enjoyed. I have completed my Goodreads reading challenge for the year now so that I really good.
Writer, activist and journalist Joan Smith has worked for years to raise awareness of violence against women and girls. And has been instrumental in bringing the innate misogyny of the police to public attention. Her new book will reinterpret the bloody, violent story of imperial women at the hands of (in no particular order) Nero, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula – and others. These imperial mothers, daughters and wives – were the most privileged women of their time but their lives were overshadowed, dominated and controlled by these men. Raped, killed, ripped apart from their children, and mostly airbrushed from history, Joan Smith brings these women back into light and into focus, offering an account of their extraordinary and tragic lives.
In Unfortunately, She was a Nymphomaniac, Smith pieces together the stories of these women, showing how they struggled for control of their lives at a time when both the law and culture were stacked against them. It is not a conventional history but an interpretation of the original texts informed by what we know now about the mechanics of domestic abuse. There are no ‘nymphomaniacs’ here but the picture that emerges is one of spirited, inspiring and sometimes reckless resistance to male authority. The way these women have been misrepresented for two thousand years speaks volumes not just about ancient misogyny, but the origin and persistence of attitudes that continue to blight women’s lives today.
You know her name, you know her story. Just not the right one.
Within the depths of the Underworld the formidable snake-haired Gorgon has finally had enough. Tired of being eternally and unjustly brandished a villain, Medusa has found the courage to face her tragic past and speak out. Determined to expose the centuries of lies surrounding her name, Medusa gives unparalleled insight into her cursed life, from her earliest memories and abandonment at birth, right through to her tragic and untimely death at the hands of the hero Perseus. Through telling her story, Medusa finally reveals the lost truth behind antiquity’s most infamous monster.
Review
Medusa is one of my favourite characters from the ancient Greek myths so I am always excited to read a retelling. Hewlett has chosen the Roman poet Ovid’s version of Medusa to base her retelling on.
This version of Medusa is an interesting take on the story because Medusa is telling her story from the depths of the underworld. She is putting the story straight after centuries of being unjustly portrayed as the villain. I would have liked to know why she chose now to put the story straight but sadly that is never explained. She starts at the very beginning and tells the reader her whole life story.
The first thing I realised with this story was that for a whole life story the book is rather short and I found this a shame as I just felt there was potential for a lot more detail in the book. I think it could have easily been another 100 pages and it would have explored Medusa’s personality in greater detail. The other thing that I found rather jarring was the modern language that Medusa used. Even if Medusa has been in the underworld for thousands of years I doubt she would be using the type of language she does at times and I just found it rather unbelievable.
I liked that the story included Medusa’s mother Ceto in the book as the retellings I have read in the past only mention Ceto as her mother and we never hear of her again. I would have liked to have seen more of Euryale and Stheno because they are an important part of Medusa’s life but their characters weren’t really developed and we didn’t see much of them or how the relationship between the sisters developed over the years.
Overall, I enjoyed this book but I just found it way too short and lacking detail. The characters needed more development and the relationships between characters needed exploring more. I give this book 3 out of 5 Dragons.
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About the author
Rosie Hewlett is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of MEDEA and MEDUSA.
Having secured a First Class Honours degree in Classical Literature and Civilisation at the University of Birmingham, Rosie Hewlett has studied Greek mythology in depth and is passionate about unearthing strong female voices within the classical world. Rosie currently lives in Kent with her husband and is now a full-time author spending her days lost inside her favourite stories from mythology.
Rosie’s first traditionally published novel, Medea, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Her self-published debut novel, Medusa, won the Rubery Book of the Year award in 2021 and is being re-released in hardback for the first time in autumn 2025.
The story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry’s mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.
Review
I first read this book back in 2002 and I must admit it wasn’t my favourite Austen novel and is one of the reasons I never bothered to read it again. However, I decided to give it another go this year because I remembered part of it is set in Bath which is one of my favourite places. I absolutely loved the descriptions of places I love in Bath and kept telling my husband where the characters were.
I am so pleased I decided to give this book another go because I absolutely loved it and couldn’t put it down. Northanger Abbey is a hilarious coming of age and satire novel of the gothic genre. Instead of finding Catherine annoying which I did in my first read I found her adorable, funny and when she let her imagination run away with her I cringed for her but also understood where she had come from. Catherine loved reading novels especially novels by Ann Radcliffe so how could she not help imagining crazy gothic mysteries around every corner. When I read The Mysteries of Udolpho I also saw the potential for gothic mysteries everywhere.
Henry Tilney is definitely a new favourite character of mine from the Austen novels. He loves reading novels and doesn’t dismiss Catherine’s love of reading gothic novels like the pompous John Thorpe who I really could not stand. Tilney is a true gentleman, he takes time with Catherine, he listens to her and enjoys her company. He also forgives Catherine’s mistakes.
Isabella Thorpe is a character much like her brother but it doesn’t become clear straight away. In fact the Thorpe family were just terrible full stop and I could easily see how Austen had been influenced by people she knew in society. The people in society she clearly disliked and had little time for.
I loved this book and would happily read it again and again. I really appreciated this book more now that I am older. I give this book a massive 5 out of 5 Dragons.
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About the author
Jane Austen born 16th December 1775 died 18th July 1817 was an English novelist known for her six major novels. Austen’s novels are known for social comedy and accurate depiction of human relationships.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. Today has been another busy day of teaching so I am looking forward to some reading later.
My chosen book to feature this week is one that has sat on my TBR pile and Goodreads TBR for a very long time. It is a new author for me but the storyline looked really interesting.
1645. When Alice Hopkins’ husband dies in a tragic accident, she returns to the small Essex town of Manningtree, where her brother Matthew still lives.
But home is no longer a place of safety. Matthew has changed, and there are rumours spreading through the town: whispers of witchcraft, and of a great book, in which he is gathering women’s names.
To what lengths will Matthew’s obsession drive him? And what choice will Alice make, when she finds herself at the very heart of his plan?
Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. I have managed a little bit of reading today as well as a bit of book sorting.
I am really getting back into my classics at the moment and I ordered this on Tuesday and I have already started reading it. I was not expecting it to be over 1000 pages though!
Lady Book Dragon 