CELEBRATING JANE AUSTEN

In the Age of Jane, it’s not easy to find fresh takes on Austen classics. It’s the rare writer who can stand out from the hordes of academic, popular and fan-fiction titles, taking Austen’s beloved plots and characters and interpreting them in new and exciting ways. Here are three titles that deserve kudos — and a good read:

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

The bestselling American author playfully updates “Pride and Prejudice” for a modern sensibility, exploring the shifting world of 21st-century love, complete with asexuality, transsexuality, casual sex and artificial insemination. Smart, entertaining and of-the-moment.

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn

This debut novel from New York Times editor Kathleen A. Flynn has been getting lots of attention, and with good reason. Its sci-fi premise is ultraunique, involving two time travellers that visit Jane Austen from the future, hoping to save an unpublished manuscript from obscurity.

Longbourn by Jo Baker

There’s a reason the New York Times has called this Austen tribute “delightfully audacious.” The critically acclaimed novel revisits “Pride and Prejudice” from the perspective of the Bennet household’s servants; a richly researched upstairs-downstairs drama that does not disappoint.