Welcome to Friday Bookblogging, now with more crunchy delicious Tuesday! We had a lovely holiday weekend, because we didn’t have to do anything, including blog, which was a nice break from the past couple of weeks. Nose is back to the grindstone now, though. For those Gentle Readers who are new to AustenBlog, Friday Bookblogging (whatever day it is produced) is a weekly, or whenever we feel like it, roundup of links to articles and items of interest about Jane Austen’s novels and books about or inspired by Jane Austen and her novels.

First of all, right now at Austenprose, check out A Soirée with Lady Susan, a celebration of Jane Austen’s wonderful epistolary novella, which will continue through September 14.

Also, Laurel Ann has put together a roundup post of new Austen-related books coming out in September, which we always like because then we don’t have to. 😀 However, we do have news of a couple more Austen-related books either recently or soon to be published.

Jane Austen Sings the Blues, a collection of essays edited by Nora Foster Stovel as a tribute to her late husband, Austen scholar and blues aficionado Bruce Stovel, is available. It’s not paraliterature, though we would totally read that fanfic!

Lady Vernon and Her Daughter by Jane Rubino and Caitlin Rubino-Bradway, a mother and daughter team, will be out in October, and they have a book trailer they wanted to share with AustenBlog’s Gentle Readers.

New York Magazine has a review of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

I read S&S&SM with a copy of Austen’s novel open next to me, a tactic that made the mash-up seem simultaneously funnier and sadly diminished. The additions are often clever, and sometimes even sly in a way that’s plausibly Austenian. Reading too closely, however, also reveals the many brilliant touches that had to be left out to make room for repetitive gags about fighting otters and shrimp guts. After a while I found myself most enjoying the passages that had been changed the least. As in the old days, Austen versus the monsters turns out to be not much of a fight.

Publisher’s Weekly has a review (scroll about a quarter of the way down the page) of A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, edited by Susannah Carson, which will be out in November.

Craft Gossip has some information about Jane Austen’s Sewing Box by Jennifer Forest, which sounds really great for those of us who enjoy needlework. *coughs significantly in the direction of a certain Cub Reporter*

There they go with the Uptight Purist Spinster &c. Janeite meme again.

Here is a short review of Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

That’s it for this week’s Bookblogging, so until next time, Gentle Readers, always remember: Books Are Nice!