Welcome to the Book Review Book Club! Every month, we select a book to discuss with our readers. Last month, we read “Wild Dark Shore,” by Charlotte McConaghy. (You can also go back and listen to our episodes on “The Catch,” “Mrs. Dalloway” and “The Safekeep.”)
Hi book clubbers! I recently learned a new word: semiquincentennial. It’s a fun one to say (semi-quin-cen-ten-nial), and it refers to a 250th anniversary.
We’ve been saying this word a lot lately here at the Book Review because this year, 2025, is the semiquincentennial of the great Jane Austen’s birth. Happy 250th, Jane!
Austen, who was born on Dec. 16, 1775, and died in 1817, at the age of 41, wrote six enduring classics: “Sense and Sensibility,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Mansfield Park,” “Emma,” “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.” Frequently characterized as comedies of manners, her novels were entertaining, but filled with sharp observations and critiques. They have delighted, challenged and shaped readers for centuries.
To celebrate Austen’s semiquincentennial, in September the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss what is perhaps her most popular work: “Pride and Prejudice.” We’ll be chatting about it on the Book Review podcast that airs on Sept. 26, and we’d love for you to join the conversation. Share your thoughts about the novel in the comments section of this article by Sept. 18, and we may mention your observations in the episode.
Here’s some related reading to get you started.
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Read our “Essential Jane Austen” guide, a lively, thoughtful consideration of books by and about Austen: “Few authors have had as felicitous, or as enduring, an afterlife as the inimitable Miss Austen. Her books, exquisite comedies of manners and morals set among the landed gentry in 18th- and 19th-century England, are snapshots of their time, but timeless in their appeal.” Explore the full guide, by our writer-at-large Sarah Lyall, here.
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Read this 2017 essay about Jane Austen’s legacy by the former Book Review editorial director Radhika Jones: “The celebration of Austen this year, two centuries after her death at 41 on July 18, 1817, masquerades seamlessly as a celebration of her life, in part because she has proved immortal, and in part because as a writer she had so little time for mortality on the page.” Read the essay here.
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Read our 2016 essay by Susan Chira — a former New York Times correspondent, editor and executive — about turning to “Pride and Prejudice” during trying times: “In ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ tragedy is held at bay. … When something terrible hits you unexpectedly, the universe seems out of balance. It’s random, and it’s cruel, and it’s anarchic. There are no certainties. Evil could just as easily triumph as good. Jane Austen’s self-enclosed world enveloped me, soothing in its contours and assumptions.” Read the essay here.
We can’t wait to discuss the book with you. In the meantime, happy reading!
The post Book Club: Read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ by Jane Austen, With the Book Review appeared first on New York Times.
