A couple of weeks ago I posted that our next book would be The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. As it turns out, The Given Day is not so easy to find in book stores right now. It is just about to be released in paperback so stores aren’t restocking the hardbacks. Because of this we decided to push back reading The Given Day until October so we would all be able to find the book in book stores.
Since we decided to puch back our reading of The Given Day, we needed to select another book for this month. We decided to read Emma by Jane Austen. I, of course, am very excited to read anything by Jane Austen. Emma was the last novel Austen was able to publish in her lifetime. The novel follows the exploits of the the spoiled little rich girl, Emma Woodhouse. Emma has too much money and too much free time on her hands. She fancies herself a wonderful match-maker, but has no desire to be matched herself. The novel follows the growth of Emma as she discovers she doesn’t know everything, can’t control other people’s feelings and is actually very much in love.
As with most Austen novels, Emma has been put on the big screen in multiple film and television adaptations. The BBC has filmed three different television adaptations of the novel. The first aired in 1972 and starred Doran Godwin as Emma. 
A 1996 adaptation starred Kate Beckinsale and the most recent adaptation began filming in April 2009, stars Romola Garai and will air sometime this fall. The same year Kate Beckinsale’s Emma aired, a movie adaptation of the novel was also released starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone is a modern adaptation of Emma and was released in 1995, the year before Paltrow and Beckinsale’s adaptations.
Emma Woodhouse is unique among Austen’s heronines in many respects but is also very similar to others in her strong, intelligent character. If you haven’t read Emma I encourage you to read it with us, and if you have, it’s always fun to read it again!
