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Love Jane Austen? Then find out what else you'll #LoveToRead

17 July 2017

Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen remains one of the most widely read authors in English literature. As we celebrate her life and work, #LoveToRead recommends more books for fans of Austen's seminal novels.

Author and actress Meera Syal recommends Pride and Prejudice as part of the 成人快手's The Big Read in 2003

If you love Pride and Prejudice you'll #LoveToRead...

A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

Chosen by The Reading Agency

Seth’s epic novel also explores themes of arranged marriage. Pick up this modern classic before the sequel is published this year.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières

Chosen by Sarah Mears and Cathy Garrington, Essex Libraries

The heroine Pelagia initially rejects the advances of the handsome Italian Captain as an invader threatening her settled life. In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth Bennett initially rejects Mr Darcy seeing him as a threat to her sister’s happiness and her sense of who she is. But love has a way….

Pride and Promiscuity - Arielle Eckstut

Chosen by The Publishers' Association

A brilliantly executed parody of Jane Austen's 'forgotten' sex scenes!

Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World - Claire Harman

Chosen by The Publishers' Association

Part biography and part cultural history, this book not only tells the captivating tale of Jane Austen's life, but also her literary legacy.

Me and Mr Darcy - Alexandra Potter

Chosen by The Publishers' Association

Bookworm Emily Albright has had it with modern-day men; she’d rather curl up with Pride and Prejudice and lose herself in a time when men were dashing, devoted and honourable.

Jane Austen at 成人快手 - Lucy Worsley

Chosen by The Publishers' Association

Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at 成人快手 is a new take on Jane Austen, examining the novelist through the places and spaces in which she lived her life and wrote her world-changing books.

If you love Persuasion you'll #LoveToRead...

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

Chosen by The Reading Agency

Wharton’s book features a similarly spirited heroine and deals with class, scandal and social mores. The film adaptation from 1993, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer went on to be nominated for five Academy Awards, picking up the Oscar for Best Costume.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman - John Fowles

Chosen by Sarah Mears and Cathy Garrington, Essex Libraries

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles with the iconic scene on the wild and windy Cobb in Lyme Regis. The Cobb in Lyme on a similarly stormy day is also the setting for a highly dramatic event in Persuasion.

Jane Austen's Novels

Book Title Publication Year
Sense and Sensibility 1811
Pride and Prejudice 1813
Mansfield Park 1814
Emma 1815
Persuasion 1817
Northanger Abbey 1817

If you love Emma you'll #LoveToRead...

Jane and Prudence - Barbara Pym

Chosen by Sandra Tuppen, Lead Curator of Modern Archives & Manuscripts 1601-1850 at the British Library

Like Emma Woodhouse, Pym’s character Jane is an inveterate matchmaker. She even compares herself to Emma. Jane can’t resist bringing her glamorous London friend Prudence down to her small village to meet handsome, brooding widower Fabian Driver. Prudence, meanwhile, is besotted with her married boss.

Like Austen, Pym writes about small, everyday happenings with deliciously wry humour, and fills her novel with pithy observational detail. She captures beautifully the tensions and jealousies that lie just beneath the surface of her characters’ outwardly harmonious relationships. Also like Austen, Pym subtly reflects on women’s place in society – in this case in 1950s England.

Grasshopper Jungle - Andrew Green

Chosen by Sarah Mears and Cathy Garrington, Essex Libraries

Austen’s Emma is a beautiful and well-meaning young woman who has compassion but lacks discipline. Compare her to Austin Szerba in Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Green: well-meaning but so often gets it wrong, also lacks discipline. Does he love his pregnant girlfriend or his best mate Robby? And (spoiler alert?) actually ends up alienating both.

The Genius of Jane Austen - Paula Byrne

Chosen by The Publishers' Association

As we celebrate Britain’s favourite novelist 200 years on, Byrne looks at the influence of theatre and her radical use of dialogue in the novels to explore why her books make such awesome movies, time after time.

Paula Byrne on Jane Austen adaptations

The author on Austen in film and theatre, from Laurence Olivier to AA Milne to Clueless.

If you love Sense and Sensibility you'll #LoveToRead...

Matilda - Roald Dahl

Chosen by Sarah Mears and Cathy Garrington, Essex Libraries

Margaret Dashwood, a lesser known character in Sense and Sensibility, is the youngest of the three sisters, feisty and keen to step into the footsteps of her older siblings.

Think of Margaret when reading Roald Dahl’s Matilda another determined young woman but with ambitions so much greater than marriage and domestic life.

Post your recommendations for good reads on social media using #LoveToRead. Happy reading.

My Friend Jane

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A truth universally acknowledged

If you love Northanger Abbey you'll #LoveToRead...

The Female Quixote - Charlotte Lennox

Chosen by The Reading Agency

The beautiful and aristocratic Arabella, like Northanger Abbey’s Catherine, makes the mistake of confusing real life with books.

Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Chosen by Sarah Mears and Cathy Garrington, Essex Libraries

Catherine Morland, the innocent country girl who believes fiction to be true in Northanger Abbey grows during the course of the story and becomes insightful and heroic. In the same way Alice the heroine of Alice in Wonderland becomes more in control of her own story and the characters around her as time passes in Wonderland.

If you love Mansfield Park you'll #LoveToRead...

Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling

Chosen by Sarah Mears and Cathy Garrington, Essex Libraries

In Mansfield Park, Fanny Price is shy, serious and introverted – readers may not like her very much because she is so insipid. Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter stories hides away in the bathroom, takes everything too seriously and is equally often hard to like.