Oh, if you liked the audio commentary have I got a treat for you! It's like being a fly on the wall for the filming and has some really hilarious byplay that now just makes me sad because Alan Rickman. :(

The Sense and sensibility screenplay & diaries : bringing Jane Austen's novel to film
http://www.worldcat.org/title/sense-and-sensibili...

I will add myself to the number of people hoping to find a way to continue reading these essays when the Toast is no more.

And, as a librarian, I wanted to mention that you can discover the source of many images like that disgusting cartoon by right clicking in Chrome and doing a "search by Image" - it appears that this cartoon has a prior history, when you check all sizes and see larger versions elsewhere.

I can't say I wanted to read anything from someone who would use this as an affirmative illustration, but if you ever do need to track down content for any reason, that's a good basic method.

YUP. And yeah, I know the prettiness factor is a concern. But it's such a nice picture! And really, my favorite thing about Beauty is the way the family and village are written to be supportive and good relationships all around. There are awkwardnesses, but overall it's a pretty positive environment and I appreciate her figuring out her role in all that.

I checked out the books over and over from the library before I bought them, and now I really want the exact same editions (with the same dust jackets too). I've worn out several copies of Beauty, though, because I liked one particular paperback edition. :)

Yay, yes! More McKinley. I really thought Aerin was somewhere nearby in Blue Sword but just not ready to get involved in everyone else's bs. A good excuse to reread? Not going to complain. So happy I have that one in hardback or it definitely would be in poor shape by now.

FWIW, here is one glimpse of her awareness of that tall white woman trope/issue from her acceptance speech from the Newbery Award:

"[...] It’s not that I am tall and light-skinned myself that has made my subconscious carry around all these years a picture of a tall, pale woman carrying a sword and defying something undefiable; although the large clumsiness of Harry and Aerin is certainly an addition by this author. Eowyn was beautiful and gracious and graceful — but never mind. Tolkien really didn’t know much about women; but I will always be grateful for the hard, pure light this one scene shed on my own girls-saving-the-universe fantasies."

She also talks about the influences of The Man Who Would Be King and The Sheik - she doesn't address the disgusting racial elements of those in the speech, but she does bring up some of the gender stuff - it's a long essay but worth reading:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130605154645/http://...

A few of my friends decided to try to read The Sheik after reading that speech and found it utterly repugnant (stockholm syndrome with a mysogynist rapist added to colonial racism) but it did make some of her colonialist influences clear even if she was trying to transcend what she knew was wrong about them wrt gender.

I love her books, but it's worth knowing what has been simmering in the background.

Britomart23 - why I thought I needed to add a number to the name "Britomart" as if everyone was clamoring to be named after figures from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, I dunno.

But female knights FTW!

I had a classmate who said she really enjoyed the Wife of Bath's tale because it, like, totally reminded her of her relationship with her, like, own mother? The head swivels were pretty funny to watch. This was a classmate whose highest tally for 'likes' was over 80 in one class period, but I still remember her Wife of Bath commentary as a high point in that whole experience.

When you use creative commons licensed photos from flickr (a form of crowd knowledge, in a way), it would help if you were more careful to follow the license - including citation is part of my CC license:

original photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ebarney/3443134369/
license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/