The Jane Austen Book Club

The JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB was a little slow to start, but I was glad that I persevered and did enjoy the story.

The premise has five women and one man starting a book club where they will read only the novels of Jane Austen. There are three older women, two younger and a man aged in between the two groups of women. No one is sure about him and why he is there! The older women have all read Austen's books and think that they have a good handle on what Austen had in mind for the characters. The younger women also have their ideas, and the man who had never read Austen before has his on take on the stories. It was interesting to hear what the different people had to say about Austen's characters. It really makes me want to go back and have a second look at her books. Reading stories in your twenties or forties and then again, later in life, may indeed have you looking at the characters with different eyes!

In between the meetings, the reader gets a peek at the lives of the book club members. As we all know, personalities play a big part in how any of us view the world.

I listened to an audio version and did not care for the reader. I almost stopped at one point because the reader was so annoying! She made the characters all seem so high pitched and unlikable! I did keep up and finished the story. I'm glad that I stayed until the end. It was worth it, but I think maybe skipping the audio version and reading the book may have been a better choice for me.

What can I say? I wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. I have a rule that if I get to page 100 of a book and don't care about the characters or what happens next, I give up. Likewise with audio books: If, after listening for two hours, I am bored and unengaged I give up. I listen to many audio books and very rarely do I give up on any, but after 2 hours of this book I felt that life is too short to endure any more of this.. The narrators voice was dull and the story just didn't keep me interested.

My college age daughter and I just finished listening to the unabridged CD version. It was thoroughly enjoyable to both of us.

The reader finds just the right light, witty tone to approach the material. Each character is voiced clearly. I couldn't decide whether I liked her rendition of Bernadette or Allegra better. Although there are times when you wnat to "turn the page back" to check on something that had already happened, this is one of the best audio books I have listened to in years.

Product skipped badly on every disc. Very disappointed. Won’t buy used again. This product should have been checked out by the seller.