Visitors dressed in the spirit of Jane Austen at an annual celebration at Governor’s House in Hyde Park, Vt.
Shelf Life
Celebrating Jane
Visitors dressed in the spirit of Jane Austen at an annual celebration at Governor’s House in Hyde Park, Vt.
Close to 200 years after the death of Jane Austen, the English novelist still inspires reverence (“A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen’’) and irreverence (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’’). On occasion, she even makes headlines, like earlier this fall when an Austen scholar examined 1,100 unpublished pages of the novelist’s work and suggested that her elegant writing style may have come at the hand of her editor.
This month, Austen’s birth — on Dec. 16, 1775 — is being widely celebrated and the 4,000 members of the Jane Austen Society of North America are as jubilant as any of her devotees. Members of the Massachusetts regional chapter go so far as to create a new script every year based on Austen’s writings. This year’s entertainment is “Austen on Austen: Austen’s Letters about Her Novels’’ to be performed by an ensemble of members at 3 p.m. today at Wheelock College, 43 Hawes St. A toast to Jane and refreshments will follow the performance. Tickets are $10. Call Nancy Yee at 617-965-5699 to reserve a spot.
Next month Suzanne Boden will devote weekends at her Vermont inn to a discussion and celebration of “Sense and Sensibility’’ (Jan. 7-9) and Boden’s favorite Austen novel, “Persuasion,’’ (Jan. 28-30). The Governor’s House in Hyde Park, Vt., is an ideal setting; the inn is a copy of the 1759 Georgian mansion, known as the Longfellow House, on Brattle Street in Cambridge.
At Governor’s House on the Austen weekends, guests are invited to slip back into Austen’s time with afternoon tea, a little Mozart, parlor games, and needlework. Movies based on Austen’s novels are watched and scrupulously analyzed. Boden gives a talk about the Regency period in which Austen set her novels and tests guests’ knowledge with what one Austen devotee called a “killer quiz.’’ The dinner and literary salon on Saturday night is a highlight for Boden, who has been hosting Austen weekends since 2008 and enjoys the spirited conversations. Period dress is optional.
The weekend’s events are open to the public, with an a la carte price list at www.onehundredmain.com/jane_austen.html.
Untitled anthology Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been repeatedly jailed for his writings and advocacy of nonviolent political change. Now a number of his critiques will be translated into English for an anthology of his work to be published in early 2012 by Harvard University. The book, which does not have a final title, will include several of the articles cited as evidence by the Chinese court that sentenced Liu last December to 11 years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power.’’
Coming out ■“From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatives’’ by Darren Dochuk (Norton)
■“Beginner’s Grace: Bringing Prayer to Life’’ by Kate Braestrup (Free Press)
■“Shakespeare’s Freedom’’ by Stephen Greenblatt (University of Chicago)
Pick of the week Dale Szczeblowski of Porter Square Books in Cambridge recommends “How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer’’ by Sarah Bakewell (Other Press): “Bakewell has written a thoroughly engaging look at the life and work of Michel de Montaigne, whose incessantly questioning approach to life is both remarkably modern and usefully instructive, even though he composed his famous essays more than 400 years ago.’’
Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com. 
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