Jane Austen reading challenge

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So the dc signed up to the Summer Reading challenge at the local library today. Then they set me a reading challenge! They have challenged me to read a “hard old fashioned book” and have chosen Jane Austen for me (they are 6 and 9, but saw an exhibition about her in the Dorset County Museum when we went to see Dippy there).

I pretty much only read modern stuff - Iain Banks, Douglas Kennedy - but partial to a bit of Marian Keyes or Jane Green etc on holiday.

I’m not sure I have read anything written before 1950 since I left school, the notable exception being Rebecca.

So where do I start with Jane Austen?

P&P obvs

Always start with Mr Darcy! (P&P)

Of course. Excuse me. I’m an ignorant, barely literate engineer. I think i might have thought P&P was one of the Brontes

Try Emma as an introduction - lot more humour than Pride and Prejudice

If you want a novel about a proper mature relationship then I'd choose Persuasion. Captain Wentworth is my favourite of Jane Austen's male characters. That letter he writes to Anne is just beautiful.

I'll always love Pride and Prejudice but Persuasion is, I think, her best novel.

Emma can be very irritating with her know it all ways, but it is funny and lovely too.

The only one I can't get on with is Mansfield Park - Fanny Price just annoys me too much.

I loathe Mansfield Park!

Definitely Persuasion. There are so many characters. If they had had soap operas back then this would have been a hit. The interaction between the six families, the snobbishness and the rivalry are so well observed.

Avoid. Nortanger Abbey as that is more Georgette heyer style. Avoid Mansfield Park as the heroine is too wet.

You could try "Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen" by Fay Weldon, it's a great introduction to accompany your first JA reading experience.

I think I love your DC! Persuasion or PandP. Oh to be reading JA for the very first time!

Perspicacia I will have to do that, as that is my first name! Fay Weldon could have written that book for me !

That is a bit of a spooky coincidence