Perfect summary of the socio-economic reality and gender power-balance of her times.

My favorite is Mansfield Park. I dislike all the characters, but the novel improves with each reading.

There were some great female authors in the 19th and early 20th C. who would really appeal to women struggling to find their identity in repressive societies where they had few powers. Not the Bronte Sisters (too psychotic in parts)–but Edith Wharton and Elizabeth Gaskell springs to mind. Or the ones who wrote for a younger audience, like Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnet.

I think I need to go read something to cheer myself up.

I never to stomach Thomas Hardy but I adore Dickens. That said, I think Austen trumps them both in pure genius. Just my view point:)

John: I am curious though. What with all the plans for expanding education and opening new univs and all, exactly what IS being taught at these places? Text books in English only? Home-grown products? Limited numbers of carefully screened and translated texts? Also, isn’t there some kind of a home-grown literary scene? I guess I find it is difficult for me to imagine a world where books are not a staple of daily existence, but I am curious as to what people read on the beach (so to speak).

Olive: I didn’t really think so, hence the smiley!
Oh! The inimicable Empress of Blandings, and her rival, Queen of Matchingham! The presence of these porcine heroïnes will be enough to ban Wodehouse from the list!
(yes I know John, only non-fiction)

Olive, from one Jane Austen-fan to the next; in England itself she is regarded as one of the three greatest writers of the nineteenth century. Together with Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardie, and you can spend a whole evening discussing which has the sharpest intellect and not come to a conclusion. So I take it that we can trust the english themselves to choose their top-writers, and we don’t have to conform to the shortsighted ignorance of the critics from our prospective countries.
(The word ”pigs” is in Pride and Prejudice too!)

Sparky: I didn’t think he might be my dream-rabbit. Perheaps a little something extra in the qawa to solve the problem?

Unfortunately Aafke she is held captive in Saudi Arabia unless she chooses to flee the country against her husband’s desire and that would mean never seeing her kids again most likely as he seems like a prick.

If any foreigner marries an American citizen and lives in the U.S. he/she gets a green card which gives them something called RIGHTS….

A. The right to work wherever they want AND

B. The right to divorce the original American if the American partner proves to be an incompatible match with them at any point which is highly likely consider divorce rates all over the world

America is all about RIGHTS and that is why America will always prevail at least in America…

“America is great because America is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” –Alexis de Tocqueville

Aafke: I would never consider Wodehouse pulp! Lord Emsworth, the Empress of Blandings, and above all Jeeves are IMMORTALS in the realm of literature.

Yes, I get a lot of flak over my liking for Austen because she is considered “chick lit.” I am eternally grateful for the internet because it has helped me hook up with fellow Austen maniacs so that we can indulge in admiration for the great authoress without getting funny looks from friends and neighbors.

I’d be interested to see just what non-fiction ends up on the list. There’s plenty of that which would be considered ‘transgressive’, too. Evolution? Sexual Psychology? Comparative Religion? Translating books on trigonometry or calculus isn’t going to be terrifically useful as tools of transformation…

Ms. Austen will not pass censure: shocking things happen: walks, dancing, elopements, letter writing, intelligent females; the books are full of haram stuff. Same but even worse goes for PG Wodehouse.
Great site, btw.

How horrible: not being allowed to read: I consider that ground for divorce.

Hmmmm….I think that will pass

Thanks for the website I will pass it on to my friend who can then pass it on to the poor woman.