Let the celebration begin! In 1811, Jane Austen’s first “darling child” was published. We’re here to tell you that’s a pretty monumental event in any author’s life. There will be celebrations of the novel going on all year, but they’re kicking off in fine style over at Austenprose with the Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge. We’re going to participate, so there will be some cross-posting over here on AustenBlog, and we would like to invite our Gentle Readers to participate as well. Laurel Ann will explore not only the actual novel, but paraliterature, non-fiction, and films related to it–and for all our complaining about She Wrote Five Other Books, You Know because of many writers’ obsession with P&P, there still is an impressive and varied selection of books and films to choose from. You can consume one piece of media or as many as you like. Directions for participation are included in the post at Austenprose. Check it out, and party with us in this auspicious year!

If that’s not enough reading for you, Laurel Ann has set up a reading challenge just for Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen Mysteries. Regular AustenBlog readers probably know that the Editrix is a big fan of this series, and it sounds like a great way to try them out, or fill in the gaps of any you might have missed.

Also, some fans of historical fiction have set up a Historical Fiction Challenge with dozens of participating bloggers; and November’s Autumn is hosting an Elizabeth Gaskell Reading Challenge at Gaskell Blog. So nice to see that many agree with us that Books Are Nice!