Oh Jane, Jane....

C.E. Brock circa 1898
The rest of the watercolors from Emma

Not to hog the blog, so to speak, but I’m almost beside myself about Jane Austen’s Emma and am more surprised about that than anyone. In fact, this has been so pleasurable that I read the first four chapters, felt like I was being rushed, so I started over from the beginning.

The long forgotten pleasure of slowly savoring each delicious sentence of a book is gift from Miss Austen. She's already given me others, and I’ve only really Read (capital R) two chapters.

Until this slow read, I couldn’t have told you why women in particular seem to love Austen. Now I know. I read this enlightening passage of Emma out loud to my husband last night as he watched football, and though we aren’t one of "those" couples, he did have the good sense to nod and grunt affirmatively in all the right places.

Austen was forty when she wrote Emma, if Wiki is to be believed and the wisdom of years comes through in her evaluation of what constitutes happiness within a mature relationship or in the case of the above passage, the lack of said same. It should be laminated and stuck into every bridal magazine ever published. In fact, (spoiler alert *waves at DeLynne) I might take this up as my personal mission, which tells you I have yet to learn the pitfalls of meddling in other people’s lives and should keep reading.

The other thing that has surprised me is that Austen is a mistress of devastatingly subtle humor. I don’t know if humor was her intention, but funny is funny. I cannot tell you how very much I truly want to “throw” some offensive someone “off with due decorum” and to disapprove of their “sort of spirit” with Austen's level of understatement. No one in particular, yet, but that is a social art worth cultivation, to my mind. The beauty of it is that they wouldn’t know they’d been insulted until they were far enough away to discourage retaliation. What’s not to like??

Here I invite, encourage, prod and meddle. Read Emma with me if you haven’t already. Read it again if you have. If nothing else, you’ll find you can call someone a whining hypochondriac without them taking offense. Just use the word valetudinarian and leave off the whining part.

Competition finished. Winner announced soon!

DRAWING SOON!

After writing my post on Bianca's bumping off, I had a quick look on the large river book retailer and was horrified at the price of the book. For a second hand version it was about ten times what I paid in my local Australian Walmart-type store.

So I have decided to part with my copy of Who Killed Bianca? in a give away to celebrate our 38th follower. The rules are just about as simple as Lesa and I could make them.

• You can't be related to us, sorry Mom.


• You must comment on this post telling us about reading in the bath. Include a contact email address in case you are the lucky winner.


• No photos of you reading in the bath, please!

After a week from the moment of this posting, (more or less) I will write a number for each comment on a little scrap of paper and draw it out of a shower cap. The lucky winner will be immediately notified via email. As soon as the winner provides a mailing address, I will post your bath book tout de suite.

If the winner does not respond within three days, a second winner will be drawn from the shower cap, or maybe I will give it to my Mom.

Please be clear that this is a nice, clean, un-waterstained second hand book. We are not like those other blogs that give you books you can't bathe with!

What a pleasure to meet so many wonderful fellow book lovers and bloggers. Thank you for reading Baja Greenawalt's Cozy Book Nook and participating in our first giveaway.

Who killed Bianca?

Book bath time is a luxury in my house. The stars have to align with kids in bed, kitchen tidied, everything organized for tomorrow, nothing important on TV, the right book and, most difficult of all, a clean tub.

About the book, I clearly cannot read someone else's, in case it gets water damaged, so loaners and library tomes are out. It must be a paperback—for some reason I just can't carry a hardback to the bath. And it must be easily enjoyable without being a permanent keeper. So, I am looking for a good, but disposable read. To date I have not damaged any book, but I just can't take that risk with a treasured tome.

A few nights ago the stars were right and I settled into a tub with the perfect paperback, Who Killed Bianca? I was hooked, and ended up staying until the water cooled and I risked hypothermia. I was awake until midnight and back into it (the book, not the tub) the next morning. I just had to know who killed Bianca.

Emma Darcy is the pen name of Australian couple Wendy and the late Frank Brennan. After his death Wendy continued to write on her own, branching out from the romance novels they had been known for. This novel is, obviously, about Bianca being bumped off, second in a series that started with Anne's assassination and continued with Camille carking it. In this story some other people get killed, but not alphabetically.

This is absolutely an Australian book: at times it even reads like a travel brochure, listing the names and detailed descriptions of landmarks, transportation, accommodation, shows and attractions. The bumping off takes place on the Ghan, a famous train trip through the Outback, and the suspects continue to tour the area, bumping into one another and bumping one another off. I found the exposition a bit exasperating at times, but couldn't stop reading. I really did want to know who killed Bianca, and was surprised enough in the end to make it all worthwhile.

The origins as a romance writer are evident in strings of sentences starting with variations of 'but' and 'however'. The air of mystery is supported by collections of questions such as the succession of, 'Had he seen her…? But why? What had distressed her..? Had a frustrated Bianca..? Did they share a past..?' This string occurred within a page, start to finish. It's a cheap way to build suspense, but I fell for it completely: I wasn't even aware of this clumsiness and the cold water until later. The book was even a finalist for the Ned Kelly Award for outstanding crime writing, so maybe I am just being critical.

If you are an Aussie reader your cover will look like the grey one I picked up in Big W, and UK or US readers will have the colourful version. I wonder why? But, no matter which cover you end up with, draw yourself a bath and head to the dry Outback without leaving the comfort of your own tub.