As it was, I kept forgetting who was whom, and rarely remembered which Austen book was actually being discussed. It's quite a short book so I could easily have finished it in a couple of days, had I found it difficult to put down. I found it somewhat interesting, on the whole, but not especially so. They are interspersed with a lot of flashbacks into the characters' pasts, and also their present temptations, friendships and work lives. A few sentences, one or two minor disagremeents - and that's all we get from the meetings. I was a little disappointed that there was actually so little discussion of the books. The book has brief descriptions of the meetings, hosted by each member in turn, with a different book to be discussed. Prudie, a young French teacher, is the youngest - and then there's Grigg, the only man in the group, and he really prefers science fiction. She starts the club primarily for her long-standing friend Sylvia, whose husband has just left her, and also invites Sylvia's rather outspoken daughter Allegra. The founder of the club is Joycelyn, who is something of a matchmaker but unmarried herself. The oldest is Bernadette, a fairly contented woman in her sixties. There are six characters in the book, who meet monthly to discuss Jane Austen's novels. It was my bedtime reading for a little over a week.
However, when I saw it at a church bookstall for a euro, I thought I might as well buy a copy. I had seen - and heard guarded recommendations for - 'The Jane Austen Book Club', but it had never quite grabbed my imagination. I haven't previously come across books by Karen Joy Fowler she's an author in the USA who writes predominantly about women.
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