Book Beginnings – Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe

This is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  They ask that you post the first line(s) to the book you are currently reading and share some feelings on the book.  I’m tweaking this a bit and I’m going to share first lines of books/stories, written by, about, or in the theme of Jane Austen.

My pick for this week is Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe

Chapter 1 – Dressing The Part

The bottom drawers of Baronda Bradley’s dresser are filled to overflowing with kid gloves, ballet slippers, stockings, feathers, lace collars, nineteenth-century coins, smelling salts, period playing cards, drawstring reticules, a vintage sewing kit – all these accessories with which she augments the breathtaking Regency outfits she wears to each year’s Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America. A walk-in closet holes her thirty size 6 gowns – the green-and-orange with stripped silk overlay, which premiered in Seattle in 2001; the flowered silk brocade day dress, from Los Angeles in 2004; the square-necked, pale-pink georgette with hand-embroidered bodice; the dark red with cutout sleeves and matching long velvet coat; the lace-and-silk confection so daringly low-cut that, at the Vancouver ball in 2007, she armed her friends with the cod word (“Shakespeare!”) to deploy if they noticed a hint of areola peeking out.

And so begins this Deborah’s account of her journey through the fandom she calls her own. You can find Deborah’s book through all major book sellers.  She will also be speaking at the Cherry Hill Public Library in March.