The Central New Jersey JASNA Chapter posts about the Christmas celebration: “A Jane Austen Christmas: Vignettes of Customs and Traditions,” which will include “holiday recreations as inspired by the writings of Jane Austen.” On December 10 at 7 p.m., Margaret C. Sullivan [author of AustenBlog] will speak about Christmas traditions in Jane Austen’s time and sign copies of her book, The Jane Austen Handbook: A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World.  [Click on the Chapter link for more information.]

The Dolphin Hotel, home to Jane Austen’s various balls when she lived in Southampton, is on the market.  See this article in The Daily Echo.co.uk

Lady Helga continues her Golden Couple’s Series ,  this week with Emma and Mr. Knightly.

 A new collection of Elizabeth Bowen’s essays includes her words on Jane Austen; read this review of the new book People, Places, Things: Essays by Elizabeth Bowen, edited by Alan Hepburn  [Edinburgh, December 2008]

Another Georgette Heyer review at Jane Austen Today:  The Reluctant Widow; and also one for Simon the Coldheart

A few bits of Austen movie trivia at the Becoming Jane Fansite:  Hugh Grant too handsome for Edward Ferrars??  of course he was!

A few blog posts on Regency weddings:  at Historical Romance UK and at Jane Austen’s World

The author of the blog Jane Austen, Here I Come! is sharing all her plans for a trip to England and Austen country in May 2009.  The blog has some great links for planning your own such itinerary as well…

 A graphic design blog has created two Jane Austen book covers, for Emma and Pride & Prejudice

On the blog History Hoydens, Kathrynn Dennis posts on  “Mending the Bodice”  and how the term “bodice ripper” came into common use as a derogatory reference to romance novels.  There is also an excellent post on this same topic at the Teach Me Tonight blog, as well as a good number of thoughtful comments.

Here is an interesting bit of news that restores my faith in all things technical (I think, anyway … I will forever favor a real book to touch!), but Nintendo has announced the release of its 100 Classic Book Collection, available December 26 in the UK, which features an initial 100 classic books to read from, with 10 additional books available for download from Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. A bookmark feature allows you to save your place in a book, and a suitability feature similar to Cooking Guide allows you to select a novel based on time constraints and subject matter.   See this article at N-Europe for information and a listing of the 100 titles:  all of Austen’s works are included, as well as many of Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontes, Hardy, Hugo, Alcott, Stevenson, Trollope, Burnett, Twain, and many more.  If this is the way to reach young readers, I am all for it!

The JASNA site has added a map of Bath to its “Maps of the Novels” page, as well as the full-text online of Persuasions No. 6  (St. Louis, 1984 and largely on Persuasion).  Check the Table of Contents for this early and hard-to-find JASNA journal.

And finally, as Jane Austen’s birthday on December 16th is fast approaching, the Becoming Jane Fansite is requesting anyone who would like to submit birthday wishes or gift ideas for Jane to their site prior to December 16, when they will post all submissions.