Jane Austen for Dummies

Jane Austen for Dummies by Dr. Joan Klingel Ray is, of course, a part of the ever-growing line of " --- for Dummies" books.  Dr. Ray is a former president of the Jane Austen Society of North America and teaches courses on Austen at university.  This book is full of information about everything Austen - her life, her writing, and her family.  It also provides a great deal of information about life in general during the Regency period, which (as you likely know) is the time during which Jane Austen lived.  Dr. Ray also includes something of a Jane Austen tour guide in one chapter, listing Austen-related places to visit in England (as well as directions on how to get to each place and a URL to the location's website, if one exists).  There are also Top Ten lists and some ideas for discussion for a Jane Austen reading group.  The set-up of the contents is designed so that a straight read-through is not necessary.  You can skip around if you want, to read just the information you're looking for, and anything within each section that might require more information for a better understanding is marked by giving (in parentheses) the chapter where that information can be located.

Don't let the title throw you -  if you are making the choice to read Jane Austen or to read more about her life, then obviously you have excellent taste and are no dummy!

Escape

Escape by Carolyn Jessop is the true account of one woman's life in the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), a radically conservative polygamist sect of the Mormon church - and the story of how she eventually escaped with her eight children. Carolyn relates what her life was like growing up in the FLDS, and through her experience we see how drastically the church changed once power shifted from prophet to prophet - and how it became unbearable under the leadership of Warren Jeffs. By this time, Carolyn had already been married and become a mother; when she was eighteen years old, she became the fourth wife of Merril Jessop - a man more than twice her own age.

We also learn about the dysfunctional family dynamic that she married into - while it is preached that all wives are to be treated equally, it is common for a man to have a favourite among them, and this causes a lot of tension in the household between all the "sister-wives," as well as among the children. Psychological and physical abuse is common within the sect, both against wives and sister-wives, as well as against children.