The Jane Austen Book Club that was started in Bluffton SC in 2014, meets every other month, but not through the summer months, in member homes. We have followed the Montreal Plan, and now re-read one Austen title every year, along with other classics. This is the current schedule for 2021 – scroll below for our reading lists from the beginning. We also have movie gatherings. Please contact me if you are interested; and please visit our facebook page: “Reading Jane Austen in South Carolina” https://www.facebook.com/groups/1353020064734960/
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Schedule Sept 2021- June 2022:
September 13-October 11, 2021: Middlemarch, by George Eliot
December 1, 2021: Diary of a Provincial Lady, by E. M. Delafield
February 2, 2022: Ivanhoe by Walter Scott;
April 5, 2022: Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim (fitting for April after all)
June 7, 2022: Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe [this was on our original 2021 reading list, all rent askew by covid…)
We will do zoom discussions unless meeting in person becomes the norm (wouldn’t that be nice!) – we can do an email discussion as well is anyone is so inclined. If anyone wants to lead any one of these discussions, please let me know!
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Schedule 2014 – present:
2014:
March 24, 2014: Pride & Prejudice / setting up the group
April 29, 2014: Sense & Sensibility
June 17, 2014: Pride & Prejudice
Sept 23, 2014: Mansfield Park
Nov 18, 2014: Northanger Abbey
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2015:
Jan 20, 2015: Emma
Mar 3, 2015: Persuasion
April 21, 2015: Lady Susan
June 23, 2015: Sanditon
Sept 15, 2015: The Watsons
Nov 10, 2015: North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell [Nov. 14, 2015: North & South movie
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2016:
Jan 12, 2016. A Victorian read: The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
Mar 8, 2016. Jane Austen: A Life, by Claire Tomalin
May 3, 2016: A festival of Georgette Heyer. read one or more of Heyer’s Regency romances – we will each give a short “book report” and tell what we loved about them (or not!) -our fluff read for the year!
Sept 20, 2016. House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
Nov 15, 2016. Emma, by Jane Austen (following the JASNA AGM on Emma)
Dec 2016: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte + Afternoon Tea
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Revised schedule, 2017:
Movie date! Jan 26, 2017, 1:00 pm: Jane Eyre (with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson, 2006 – a BBC production – it runs nearly 4 hours)
Feb 7, 2017: by Jane Austen. The Juvenilia – or certain titles (see below)
April 4, 2017: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy / Movie: April 25, 2017
May 9, 2017: inspired by JA. Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway
Sept 25, 2017: popular culture. Stephanie Barron. Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor: Being the First Jane Austen Mystery
Nov 14, 2017: by Jane Austen, Sense & Sensibility. [also read William Deresiewicz. A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter. – read Emma and S&S chapters]
Dec 12, 2017: tis the season: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens – a Christmas Feast at Cathy S’s home.
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2018:
Feb 27, 2018 (Tues): Fay Weldon. Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen. (1984)
April 10, 2018 (Tues): Frances Burney. Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778)
May 8, 2018 (Tues): Anne Bronte. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) – Carol L. will talk about horses in JA’s time – also a great movie of this with Toby Stephen (Maggie Smith’s son)
June-Sept – no meetings, sorry to say – you can all decide to read George Eliot’s Middlemarch over the break because: 1) you don’t want to lose your Victorian literature reading abilities; 2) it is considered the finest novel in the English language; and 3) because we are going to choose this eventually so you might as well get a start on it…!
Oct 16, 2018 (Tues): Jane Austen. Persuasion (1818) [also read: chapter 5 in A Jane Austen Education (W. Deresiewicz): “Persuasion: True Friends”]
Dec 4 (Tues): Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca (1938) [will discuss similarities to Jane Eyre] – figure out movie date
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2019:
January 15, 2019 (Tues): Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley; also plan annual schedule
February 26, 2019 (Tues): Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray; will also start discussing The Letters
March 26, 2019 (Tues): Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
May 7, 2019 (Tues): The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins
September 24, 2019 (Tues): The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe (this is long, so take the summer to read it!)
October 22, 2019 (Tues):Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen (yay!)
November 19, 2019 (Tues): Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
December 10, 2019 (Tues): Book Group Tea – will discuss the schedule for 2020
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Schedule for 2020:
January 14, 2020: Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
March 10, 2020: The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
Due to the COVID-19 virus, our regular group gatherings have ceased for now. We have been doing slow reads / email discussion extended over a few weeks, followed by a zoom session wrap-up. Here’s what we have read, and what’s upcoming:
April – May, 2020: Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen / Lovers’ Vows, adapted by Elizabeth Inchbald
May – June, 2020: Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
June – July, 2020: Sherlock Holmes – first two novels: A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle
August, 2020: The Dead Secret, by Wilkie Collins
September 2020: The Other Bennet Sister, by Janice Harlow
October, 2020: break [or join Deb doing Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy at the USCB OLLI program]
November, 2020: A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy
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Schedule for 2021:
Due to the COVID-19 virus, our regular in-person group gatherings have ceased for now. We have been doing slow reads / email discussion extended over a few weeks, followed by a zoom session wrap-up. Here’s what we have read, and what’s upcoming for 2021:
January 2021: The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles
March 12, 2021: The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett
May 3, 2021: The Go-Between, by L. P. Hartley (1953)
June, 2021: I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
July/August, 2021: break [read Middlemarch over the summer]
September, 2021: date TBD – Middlemarch, by George Eliot
On hold:
Pamela, by Samuel Richardson
The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope
The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton
Jane Austen in Vermont 