Longbourn by Jo Baker

Random House

Longbourn by Jo Baker  takes a new look at The Bennett Household created by Jane Austen through the eyes of its servants. The young ladies may have been goddesses to eligible bachelors, but they were only too human to Sarah the housemaid when emptying chamber pots and scrubbing the household laundry. 

Mrs Bennett keeps up appearances, but the servants are aware of The Bennett’s financial circumstances– the new footman wears a 30 year old uniform that makes him ‘look like a ghost’. Their day is far more exhausting than in grander households, but they all have their different reasons for wanting to stay at Longbourn, which are gradually revealed. 

Apart from Mr Bennett, the Pride and Prejudice characters are fairly in keeping with the original, with the main focus on the relationships below stairs. Servants are invisible to grand gentlemen such as Bingley and Darcy, but Wickham is not above trying to seduce the youngest maid, Polly. Mr Collins’ visit is a huge event, because as the future heir of Longbourn, he has the power to affect the future and security of the servants.

The group liked the fact that Longbourn was a different take rather than a sequel, and enjoyed Jo Baker's insight on the domestic service that supported the Regency society. 

BookTubeAthon!

If you feel like some fresh reading inspiration next week, why not try a BookTubeAthon? 

If you're wondering what that is, then take a look at Book Tube a fast growing community of book lovers who review books by making videos about them. Ariel Bissett and a number of other BookTubers are running the Challenge from Mon 14th - 21st July for the second year.  Their YouTube Channel dedicated to the Challenge has over 6000 subscribers, and has won sponsorship from BookDepository.com 

You can join in through reading and / or making videos, and here's the Challenges:

Could combine red on the cover

with a series and change of genre? 

The Reading Challenges                          
Challenges can be combined ...

* A book with pictures
* Start and finish a series
* A book with red on the cover
* A book someone else picks out for you 
* A book from a genre you've read 
  the least this year
* A book to movie adaptation
* Read seven books     

Image from Penguin
Our Book Group Read for this month

 'The Rosie Project' does have 

some red on the cover ...

The Video Challenges

* Day One: Show your top 3 books you read because of     booktube
* Day Two: Find the items on three covers
* Day Three: Draw a better cover for any book
* Day Four: Write a story using all the words from three titles
* Day Five: Make a rainbow of your favourite books
* Day Six: Find 5 things from one of the books you've read this week
* Day Seven: Show us where you've read during the BookTubeAthon

Looks like being an interesting Challenge - we're thinking about trying something similar here!  Quinn