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I think the asker of this question really doesn't get Jane Austen. I sincerely believe that one of Austen's main points is that the way women are judged as candidates for marriage is ridiculous and unlikely to bring happiness.

How realistic Pride and Prejudice really is? I mean, it's very well written, but I have a hard time taking the love part of the story seriously when I know that in real life, there would be 0.0000000000001% chance of a man of Darcy's calibre in that era proposing to a poor, average looking and unaccomplished young lady like Lizzy.

Let's pretend that does actually describe Elizabeth

Beauty? It failed Mr. Bennet

Wealth? What did that get Mrs. Bennet? She's hardly happy. Can you imagine what kind of marriage Mr. Darcy would have with Anne de Bourgh? Is there a snowball's chance in hell that he'd be happy and fulfilled in that relationship?

Accomplishments? You mean the thing that Caroline Bingley has? That any girl can acquire as long as you throw her in a prestigious enough school? Something that is wielded by most as a mere tool to secure a good marriage but rarely loved in it's own merit? What is that worth?

The value of Elizabeth Bennet is her intellectual compatibility with Mr. Darcy. The value of Fanny Price is her deep morality and sincere affection. The value of Anne Elliot is not her bloom that faded but her cultivated mind and her compassion. The value of Elinor Dashwood is her mental strength in the face of adversity. The value of Marianne Dashwood is her ability to love whole-hardheartedly. The value of Catherine Morland is her honesty, candour, and love. The value of Emma Woodhouse is not in her wealth but her determination to rectify her mistakes and her selfless care of her father.

Lady Middleton's pianoforte sits untouched since her accomplishments secured her a baronet; Willoughby finds wealth cannot fully compensate for the lack of love; and beauty is ephemeral. Those were never good criteria for securing lasting happiness and Jane Austen knew it and said it!

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Different Stories Resonate with Different People

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I love all books but sometimes you read a book and you’re like so were all 21 thousand of you blindfolded and at gun point when you rated it 5 stars

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The problem is that we think the opposite of funny is serious. It is not. In fact, as G. K. Chesterton pointed out, the opposite of funny is not funny, and the opposite of serious is not serious. Benny Hill was funny and not serious; Rory Bremner is funny and serious; most politicians are serious but, unfortunately, not funny. Humour has its uses. Laughter can get through the keyhole while seriousness is still hammering on the door. New ideas can ride in on the back of a joke, old ideas can be given an added edge.

-- Terry Pratchett - A Slip Of The Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction

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GET GRUFFALO'D, BITCH

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The San Francisco Examiner, March 27, 1942

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For centuries, the image of a monk hunched over a manuscript, painstakingly copying text by candlelight, has dominated perceptions of medieval book production. However, a recent study has provided the first quantitative analysis of female scribes’ contributions to manuscript copying, revealing that women played a small but steady role in this field. Published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, the research estimates that at least 110,000 manuscripts were copied by female scribes during the Middle Ages, with around 8,000 still surviving today.

Click here to read more

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I've been looking for a fun/quick little animation sideproject to flex my frame-by-frame muscles, so introducing Margie! A cat-goose dragon based on this little fella from this medieval manuscript

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reading nabokov is maddening because his writing is so playful and evocative and effortless and english isn't even his first language. he's doing things in a second language most people could spend their lives trying and failing to replicate in their first language. makes me feel like this

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fascinating that when you tell people "you have to learn the rules to break them" when talking about drawing/painting etc everyone nods and agrees but the second you say "you have to read books if you want to write better" there's a horde of contrarians begging to be the wrongest people ever all of a sudden

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A display from a smalltown second hand bookstore. What has been found in books.

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Well, it’s finally finished.  It was a genuinely satisfying project. I present you Ankh Morpork in the guise of Google Maps.

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Because of Re: Carmilla, I thought you all would enjoy my edition of Carmilla :

The holes go all the way through, the sides of the book are red, and on some pages the text is colored red just under the holes !

I was so happy when I found it in a little french bookshop specialized in queer texts ❤️

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If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

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when i was reading the book entangled life which is about fungi and the author merlin sheldrake said that once he got his first author copies he was going to dampen the pages and use them to grow oyster mushrooms and yeast and then use the yeast to brew beer and then drink the beer with the mushrooms to complete the cycle of fungal knowledge. i was like really and truly this guy gets it