The contest is open until May 15th. You have two chances of winning this book by leaving a comment. Click on image to enter.
Nearly 200 years after her death, Jane Austen is more popular than ever with publishers and readers. Many of her fans are attracted to her era, which they identify as one filled with grace, gentility, and good manners. In The Jane Austen Guide to Life: Thoughtful Lessons for the Modern Woman, author Lori Smith examines Jane Austen’s novels, letters, and life for insights that can help guide today’s woman through life’s passages. There is much good material to digest.
The most important thing is family. Jane was blessed with a large, supportive tribe. They encouraged her talents, reveling in her tales, giving her time to write, and enjoying her books as she was writing them. With much love and support she was able to pursue and develop her talent in an age when such a career was not easily open to women. When she began to write as a girl, Jane had no idea that she would ever make money from her talent, much less find the time to pursue her career. Some lessons to extract from her persistence in writing are: Do what you would be willing to be poor for; temper your expectations; and share your gifts with the world. Lucky for us Jane never gave up and weathered the dry giving for posterity six incomparable novels.
Lori Smith’s Guide moves from the essential to the romantic. Let me explain. It is hard to find true love if you don’t know what you want. So, Jane’s advice via Lori is: Be accepting of yourself. Be self-aware. And be sensible. If you’re never satisfied with yourself, then you can’t please others. It’s an axiom that Jane and her heroines followed:
Not only do Austen’s characters find love, they find themselves, and they improve themselves. They see their faults in ways they haven’t before. They realize what kinds of things they are capable of — and that at times they are capable of doing things badly — and this awareness spurs them to change.
Regarding romance, once a woman is open to changing her mind, she is receptive to so many possibilities – of the fact that she was wrong, of opening her eyes to others, of finding the right man. In Jane Austen’s era, a sense of community and belonging helped to guide a woman in the right direction. Jane’s characters (and the author herself) lived in a small, connected society, where friends and relatives knew many details about each other. This situation no longer exists for many of us today:
I think [Jane’s] greatest advice to us would be to keep our eyes open and watch carefully, to not commit too quickly before we really understand a guy’s character.
Spoken like our wise mothers. The Guide continues to cover such topics as saving and spending, gratitude and enduring hardships. In the end, Jane shows us to live life to the fullest and to enjoy every moment. She was capable of making fun of herself and laugh even when things were not going her way.
Even the smaller things, that for most of us would only annoy us and lead to complaint, Jane approached with humor. She told Cassandra, “I will not say that your Mulberry trees are dead, but I am afraid they are not alive.”
In the end, no one can live our lives but ourselves. We can only follow our inner guide and the principles we have chosen to live by.
Lori Smith’s The Jane Austen Guide to Life: Thoughtful Lessons for the Modern Woman continues to inform us about our lives through the lessons that Jane Austen and her characters can teach us. Like her first book. A Walk with Jane Austen, Lori’s clear writing style is a delight to read. One can almost hear Jane speaking through her words. This book is a wonderful gift for mother’s day, for mothers to give to their daughters, and for men to understand the mind of a fine woman. It is also delightfully illustrated.
I give it 4.5 out of 5 regency tea cups.
Book Giveaway: To enter the book giveaway, click on this link. Contest is open until May 15th. Sadly, only those living in the US and Canada are eligible. Please leave a way to contact you in your comment.
Order the book in both hard cover and eBook format:
- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: skirt! (May 1, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0762773812
- ISBN-13: 978-0762773817
Jane Austen's World 
This book sounds remarkable, and I hadn’t heard of the first either. Clearly, this will have to rectified. Thank you!
I will be finishing this book either tonight or tomorrow. I’m 3/4 through and think it is delightfully written, as was Lori’s other Jane Austen book. A must have book for anyone who is a Janeite and for our daughters. My daughter is a newlywed but I think I’ll still find a way to get it for her.
“This book is a wonderful gift for mother’s day, for mothers to give to their daughters, and for men to understand the mind of a fine woman. It is also delightfully illustrated.”
Great review Vic but , ” men to understand the mind of a fine woman.” Phew, that’s stretching credulity a little don’t you think, Vic. Can men ever understand the mind of a fine woman? I’ve been married for 30 years this July and I’m still on the first step of the ladder. I’m struggling, Vic, and probably always will. ha! ha!
That’s because you haven’t read this book,Tony!! Thanks for the laugh.
Vic, I fear the most we could hope for would be that the book would shine just a narrow beam of light for him into the recesses of his good lady’s mind. :D And no doubt she would prefer not to be *completely* understood, right?
“Many of her fans are attracted to her era, which they identify as one filled with grace, gentility, and good manners.”
Because Austen was such a skilled writer we sometimes forget that her depiction of that era is almost as fictional as the plots of her novels. This is particularly true of city life. There is every indication that Austen much preferred the quieter country society, than she did the urban way of life,
I’ve written about this paradox in a few blog pieces, one of which is:-
http://unpublishedwriterblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/the-character-of-bath-and-bath-as-a-character/
Oh, I haven’t read this one! I have to acquire it. Thank you for the review Vic. And for the link to the giveaway — I “ran” straight over and entered!
[…] With Jane Austen. Our association has continued with her new book, The Jane Austen Guide to Life. (Read my review here.) Please welcome Lori as I talk to her about her most recent writing experience. I hope to meet her, […]
Jane Austen does indeed show us a truly delightful, albeit sanitised, picture of life in Regency England. The journals of Anne Lister (1791-1840) reverse that picture somewhat, especially where the sexuality of women is concerned. See The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister (Virago 2010) and No Priest But Love (New York University Press, 1992).