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Join us on the first Sunday of each month from 3 pm - 4 pm for our version of book group lite! Tea and cookies from East 59 Café will be served during a lively discussion of our book of the month. If you need this month's title, copies are available on request at the Fiction desk. Come read with us!
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Eligible : a novel
by Curtis Sittenfeld
Returning with her sister, Jane, to their Ohio hometown when their father falls ill, New York magazine editor Lizzy Bennett confronts challenges in the form of her younger sisters' football fangirl antics, a creepy cousin's unwanted attentions and the infuriating standoffish manners of a handsome neurosurgeon.
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Rewriting Jane Austen - The Austen Project I‘Sense and Sensibility’ – by Joanna Trollope? Doesn’t sound right, does it? How about ‘Northanger Abbey’ – by Val McDermid? Meet The Austen Project: six well-known authors are ‘reworking’ Jane Austen’s six completed novels. Why? Erm…because they can? This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means, and there are still fewer rewrites of Austen than there are of Shakespeare. Of course, Shakespeare’s works were themselves rewrites – but more on that later. Inevitably, the Internet has buzzed with outraged comments that the six chosen authors – and definitely publishers HarperCollins, whose brainchild this appears to be – are lazy and only after easy money. Of course The Austen Project is at least partly a commercial exercise, and such “criticism” is a strange way to insult the scheme. (It would be an odd publisher or author who didn’t want to make money.) To read more about The Austen Project, visit the link below: This article is from Buried Under Books.
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Curtis Sittenfeld Is No Jane Austen, but She's O.K. With That Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of the novel “Eligible,” in St. Louis. Credit Whitney Curtis for The New York Times It takes confidence — some might even say hubris — to rewrite one of the most beloved novels in the English canon. So Curtis Sittenfeld was prepared for a backlash when word got out that she was writing a modern-day version of Jane Austen’s classic “Pride and Prejudice.” The response from some die-hard Austen fans was swift and predictably brutal. “There have been some early reviews that say, ‘Curtis Sittenfeld is no Jane Austen,’” Ms. Sittenfeld said. “And I’m like, ‘Clearly.’” To read the full article, visit the link below: This article is from the New York Times.
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Curtis Sittenfeld's Eligible Reimagines Pride and Prejudice in CincinnatiMay 2016 Alyssa BrandtIllustration by Ben Kirchner "It was an offer she couldn’t refuse. In late 2011, HarperCollins UK approached author Curtis Sittenfeld about penning a modern update of Jane Austen’s beloved classic, Pride and Prejudice. “I thought, How can I resist? This could be so much fun,” says Sittenfeld, whose previous novels include Prep, American Wife, and Sisterland. The result is Eligible, published by Random House in April. And here’s the best part—it trades 19th-century England for present-day Cincinnati. “I think something an English village and Cincinnati have in common is that outsiders might think, Oh, they’re not that interesting. But if you live there, you realize there’s drama and intrigue all around you,” says Sittenfeld." To read the full article, visit the link below: This article is from Cincinnati Magazine.
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"If there exists a more perfect pairing than Curtis Sittenfeld and Jane Austen, we dare you to find it.... Sittenfeld makes an already irresistible story even more beguiling and charming." Elle
"Sittenfeld is an obvious choice to re-create Jane Austen’s comedy of manners. [She] is a master at dissecting social norms to reveal the truths of human nature underneath." Millions
"The further afield that Sittenfeld strays from Austen, the less compelling and less credible her story is, and the ending sags under the weight of a television-programmed finale. Overall...Sittenfeld’s latest offers amusing details and provocative choices but little of the penetrating insight into underlying values." Publishers Weekly
"In this charming modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Sittenfeld deftly brings Austen's classic into the 21st century.... Her take on Austen's iconic characters is skillful, her pacing excellent, and her dialog highly entertaining.... [A] wonderful addition to the genre. —Kristen Droesch" Library Journal
"A delightful romp for not only Austen devotees but also lovers of romantic comedies and sly satire, as well.... Bestselling Sittenfeld plus Jane Austen? What more could mainstream fiction readers ask for?" Booklist
"The modernization of this classic story allows for a greater and more humorous range of incompetency and quirks.... Delight in this tale for its hilarious and endearing family drama, but don’t expect to get the same level of romantics and Darcy-inflicted swoon that make the original untouchable." Kirkus Reviews
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Click on the following links to find discussion questions for this title:
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Curtis Sittenfeld "Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of five novels: Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, and Eligible. Her first story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It, will be published in 2018. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into twenty-five languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Curtis has interviewed Michelle Obama for Time; appeared as a guest on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” CBS’s “Early Show,” and PBS’s Newshour; and twice been a strangely easy “Jeopardy!” answer."
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