Rebecca

A Very Jane Year

This is a very exciting year in the Austenesque community: December 16th would be Jane Austen’s 250th birthday! Given my long-running love of Jane Austen, it will surprise nobody that I am going to join the global celebration and make this A Very Jane Year.

In not-so-many months, Summer of Jane will make a reappearance, but that won’t be the only Jane-related content to hit the blog this year. Expect to see a variety of Austenesque posts in the months to come, featuring such topics as my personal Jane Austen journey to movie reviews to book lists.

My reading plans for the year also include a lot of Austenesque reads – I’m not waiting for Summer of Jane to get started! Aside from rereading Jane’s novels {more on that particular journey below}, I have so many Austenesque novels on my shelves – and Kindle. I’ve been collecting them for years, faster than I can read them, and it’s time to start balancing that scale. My ambitions are so high, I even dedicated the “extra” bookshelf page in my Always Fully Booked planner to this “Jane Project.” Hopefully by the end of the year, a large percentage of the 40 blank spines will have been filled.

In addition to my own indulgence in all things Jane, I’m also participating in the 2025 Jane Austen Reading Challenge hosted by Canterbury Classics. Check out their blog post for full details and downloadable trackers, but I am very excited. Since it’s one of the monthly prompts, I’ll probably even make myself finally finish reading Mansfield Park. {Maybe, ha}.

And because there’s no such thing as too much Jane Austen, here’s a few other blogs to check out:

  • Budget Tales Book Blog is going to be posting reviews throughout the year.
  • Jane Austen’s World kicked off their year of posting with a focus on hospitality and food in the Georgian Era. In 2024, they did a series of posts breaking down the events of Jane’s world {and books} month-by-month, the December post has links back to the previous months.
  • Austenesque Reviews is an excellent resource for Austenesque reads, if you want to dive into variations and/or retellings of Jane’s originals.
  • Austenprose is another good place for Austen-related books {and historical fiction reads}.

Will you be celebrating Jane Austen this year? Are you an Austen reader? A lover of the movies? Or maybe you’ve never visited the world of an Austen novel and have no idea why I’m so excited, ha. My hope is this year is one of returning to familiar stories and falling in love all over again.

18 comments

      • I’ve seen on my library app that there are quite a few Austen inspired books so I have lots to choose from! My main goal is to read Sense and Sensibility. I’ve started it a few times over the years. I just need to buckle down and get it read.

        Thank you ☺️

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        • Oh there are so many Austen-inspired books out there! There’s definitely something for every reader’s taste 🙂 Ooooh, I’m looking forward to my Sense & Sensibility reread: that’s one I picked up as a comfort read frequently in college, haha ((and I rewatch the 2009 BBC miniseries a lot, LOL!))

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  2. AH seems like this is the year to read more Austen, so far I’ve only read 2 of them and I love them but I still have not read P&P. So that’s the next one I’ll read for sure. Looking forward to seeing some more Austen content this year 😀

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      • It seems strange that I didn’t start my Austen journey with P&P given that it’s her biggest title but it’s something to look forward to 🙂 I hope you have the best Austen year! Almost? Which one(s) are your least fav?

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        • I’ve yet to convince myself to finish Mansfield Park 🫢 And I’m actually in the minority when it comes to Persuasion – it just doesn’t do it for me, LOL. However I love Persuasion retellings – go figure 🙃

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  3. I saw it mentioned somewhere else recently that it was 250 years of Austen but I don’t think it was in the blogging world 🤔 I think maybe it was in a National Trust magazine as I remember seeing it mentioned that one of their houses was doing something for it so.

    Anyway I’ve somehow never read anything by Jane Austen and I only got around to seeing Pride & Prejudice when I was ill a couple of years ago. It looks like you have lots of fun activities planned though and are really going to make the most of this milestone.

    I’m curious to learn about the retellings on your TBR. I’ve heard of a few but I get the impression that many will be new to me too.

    Maybe I’ll try to finally read Pride & Prejudice in celebration of the year. I’m terrible at picking up classics but I do want to try more of them and that one seems pretty universally loved.

    I look forward to learning more in all of your Austen based content.

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    • I’ve seen a lot of special events happening in England for the year – and they’re quite tempting, haha

      Pride & Prejudice is a great first novel/introduction to Jane, and I hope if you pick it up you enjoy it 💕

      There are more retellings than any one person could read, haha… They’re gonna make for some fun lists I think 🙂

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      • I honestly hadn’t thought to look besides spotting that one but I did a very quick Google search and I’ll admit that even as someone unfamiliar with Austen I’m kind of curious about the Regency inspired Country Fair that I spotted. I’m sure they’ll do some events nearer to you too though. People love her works worldwide after all.

        Thank you 🥰 I do definitely plan to one day and I do quite like the idea of trying to fit it in this year but we’ll see. I’m also particularly intrigued by Lady Susan’s Letters. I only heard of it when I joined the blogging world but the idea of a classic in that format intrigued me 😂

        I’m not surprised to hear that 😂 and I look forward to seeing the lists. Hopefully you’ll love the ones that you try out too.

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