Natalie Jenner
Autore di The Jane Austen Society
Serie
Opere di Natalie Jenner
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 1968
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- Canada
- Luogo di nascita
- England, UK
- Luogo di residenza
- Canada
- Breve biografia
- Natalie was born in England and emigrated to Canada as a young child. She obtained her B.A. from the University of Toronto’s St. Michael’s College where she was the 1990 Gold Medalist in English Literature, her LL.B. from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, and was Called to the Bar of Ontario in 1995. In addition to a brief career as a corporate lawyer, Natalie has worked as a recruiter, career coach, and consultant to leading law firms in Canada for over twenty years.
Natalie also once founded Archetype Books, an independent bookstore in Oakville, Ontario, where she continues to reside with her family and two rescue dogs.
Utenti
Recensioni
Compelling!
Jenner continues exploring the lives of various of characters we’ve met in the “Austen Society” and “Bloomsbury Girls.” This time the action is mostly set in post World War II Rome. Vivien Lowrey is a playwright. Through her works she tries to capture the truth of things. Having been savaged by theatre critics for her latest production she comes to Rome to work as a script doctor for “When All Else Fails” a Douglas Curtis film being produced in Italy.
Joseph McCarthy has started his witch hunts for communist and socialists in the film industry and many have fled here. Mussolini had built a huge studio complex in Rome specifically for propaganda. Now, in 1955, Cinecittà Studios is being well used by the Italian and other film makers, including the Americans.
Vivien catches up with others of the Austen and Bloomsbury women who flit in and out of the story, including Peggy Guggenheim.
The names! I’m starry eyed! Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Orson Wells, Eartha Kitt!
The story is complex. Layers upon layers build up a picture of Vivian and those around her. Vivien had been engaged to David St. Vincent, heir to an earldom. David had been captured in North Africa, then sent to Italy, escaped and then disappeared. Vivian had always believed he was dead. When she finds out he’d lived, she has hope. That’s part of her reason for coming to Italy.
In Rome she learns the story of many in the Italian underground, particularly the women. One was La Scolaretta, girlfriend of underground leader Prince Nino Tremonti, now filmmaker. La Scolaretta became an assassin. She was helped by an Italian nun, Sister Justina. Their reasons for helping are different, but their bravery and resistance is awe inspiring.
A film is to be made about Scolaretta. The Vatican shuts it down!
The Vatican comes under fire. Where were they during the time when the country was occupied by the Nazis. Did they seek to hold onto power at any cost?
Meanwhile the search for news of David and for others comes to the fore for Vivien. During her search Vivien faces facts about her own life.
As she and her friend Gabriella Giacometti discuss when Claudia (a reporter for Life Magazine) moves onto a new life, “Our secrets are who we really are.”
A deeply moving story of loss and gain, of power abused, and of a time in history that has stained generations.
A St. Martins Press ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change… (altro)
Jenner continues exploring the lives of various of characters we’ve met in the “Austen Society” and “Bloomsbury Girls.” This time the action is mostly set in post World War II Rome. Vivien Lowrey is a playwright. Through her works she tries to capture the truth of things. Having been savaged by theatre critics for her latest production she comes to Rome to work as a script doctor for “When All Else Fails” a Douglas Curtis film being produced in Italy.
Joseph McCarthy has started his witch hunts for communist and socialists in the film industry and many have fled here. Mussolini had built a huge studio complex in Rome specifically for propaganda. Now, in 1955, Cinecittà Studios is being well used by the Italian and other film makers, including the Americans.
Vivien catches up with others of the Austen and Bloomsbury women who flit in and out of the story, including Peggy Guggenheim.
The names! I’m starry eyed! Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Orson Wells, Eartha Kitt!
The story is complex. Layers upon layers build up a picture of Vivian and those around her. Vivien had been engaged to David St. Vincent, heir to an earldom. David had been captured in North Africa, then sent to Italy, escaped and then disappeared. Vivian had always believed he was dead. When she finds out he’d lived, she has hope. That’s part of her reason for coming to Italy.
In Rome she learns the story of many in the Italian underground, particularly the women. One was La Scolaretta, girlfriend of underground leader Prince Nino Tremonti, now filmmaker. La Scolaretta became an assassin. She was helped by an Italian nun, Sister Justina. Their reasons for helping are different, but their bravery and resistance is awe inspiring.
A film is to be made about Scolaretta. The Vatican shuts it down!
The Vatican comes under fire. Where were they during the time when the country was occupied by the Nazis. Did they seek to hold onto power at any cost?
Meanwhile the search for news of David and for others comes to the fore for Vivien. During her search Vivien faces facts about her own life.
As she and her friend Gabriella Giacometti discuss when Claudia (a reporter for Life Magazine) moves onto a new life, “Our secrets are who we really are.”
A deeply moving story of loss and gain, of power abused, and of a time in history that has stained generations.
A St. Martins Press ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change… (altro)
After a dramatic breakthrough in Vivien Lowry's career in London, she starts working as a melodrama screenwriter at the Cinecitta Studios cinema in Rome. Changes to the script may bring Vivien success she wouldn’t be able to achieve in London. At the same time, she can look for information about her fiancé, whom she lost during World War II. Vivien, who has not found a second love after her fiancé, gets involved with producer John Lassiter. However, Lassiter is not divorced, he is still very close to his wife and very attached to their adopted daughter. There are secrets behind this that will be revealed along with the other secrets of the characters in this book.
This is another book from which I learned something new. I didn't know that the Church had a huge influence on the Italian film industry and that the censorship was very excessive.
It was a good story, but I lost track somewhere and got disconnected. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. The ending was better than I expected, and I found the setting in the world of Italian cinema very interesting.
This book was about discoveries and bringing peace after the hardships of war. I would like to read another book by this author.… (altro)
This is another book from which I learned something new. I didn't know that the Church had a huge influence on the Italian film industry and that the censorship was very excessive.
It was a good story, but I lost track somewhere and got disconnected. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. The ending was better than I expected, and I found the setting in the world of Italian cinema very interesting.
This book was about discoveries and bringing peace after the hardships of war. I would like to read another book by this author.… (altro)
I received The Jane Austen Society yesterday, which was the date of its release, and finished it in the early hours of this morning. It was certainly an enjoyable book, well thought-out, peppered with real insight into Austen's characters, and populated with personae who were interesting, if predictable. I think that was the fault of the entire book - it was predictable - characters did what you expected and hoped that they would do, and there were very few elements of surprise.
The book is set in Chawton, where Jane Austen lived in Chawton cottage from July of 1809 until her death in July of 1817. The house was provided by her brother Edward Austen Knight, who had been adopted away from his family with wealthy patrons better fitted to raise and educate an intelligent boy. Edward lived in Chawton Great House, which in the novel is still inhabited by the last of the line of the Knight family. You can see that the author has done her research well, and that she has visited the setting often enough to know where churches and graveyards and cottages sit.
Back to the book: in post-World War II Britain, a group of Jane Austen aficianados band together to ensure the preservation of Chawton cottage, where at the very least Austen wrote Persuasion, and to purchase it by selling some of the rare and valuable books belonging to Chawton Great House. The group is populated by the town's doctor, a lawyer, a school teacher, the heiress to the Knight family, a farmer, a school girl, a Sotheby's appraiser, and a famous Hollywood actress who is planning to move to Chawton when she marries her handsome bad-boy producer, who has his own plans for Chawton.
That's pretty much the whole plot. Of course there are some romances, and a couple of mysteries posited and easily solved. I think mainly I felt annoyed that the author had dumped into Chawton, as if by accident, everyone who would be necessary to preserve Austen's heritage. There's a lawyer, a rich woman, a precocious school girl, an appraiser to sum up the worth of the books, so it's all made easy for the group because they have gathered the necessary expertise.
I didn't hate the book, in fact I quite enjoyed it, but afterwards I felt unsatisfied by it. The author's innate intelligence and the skill of her editors did not get that the book was too unrealistic ever to be true, and that well-versed readers might catch on to that, despite the quotes from Austen and the pleasant setting. So: unfulfilling, enjoyable, but not on the soul-deep level that a good book requires.… (altro)
The book is set in Chawton, where Jane Austen lived in Chawton cottage from July of 1809 until her death in July of 1817. The house was provided by her brother Edward Austen Knight, who had been adopted away from his family with wealthy patrons better fitted to raise and educate an intelligent boy. Edward lived in Chawton Great House, which in the novel is still inhabited by the last of the line of the Knight family. You can see that the author has done her research well, and that she has visited the setting often enough to know where churches and graveyards and cottages sit.
Back to the book: in post-World War II Britain, a group of Jane Austen aficianados band together to ensure the preservation of Chawton cottage, where at the very least Austen wrote Persuasion, and to purchase it by selling some of the rare and valuable books belonging to Chawton Great House. The group is populated by the town's doctor, a lawyer, a school teacher, the heiress to the Knight family, a farmer, a school girl, a Sotheby's appraiser, and a famous Hollywood actress who is planning to move to Chawton when she marries her handsome bad-boy producer, who has his own plans for Chawton.
That's pretty much the whole plot. Of course there are some romances, and a couple of mysteries posited and easily solved. I think mainly I felt annoyed that the author had dumped into Chawton, as if by accident, everyone who would be necessary to preserve Austen's heritage. There's a lawyer, a rich woman, a precocious school girl, an appraiser to sum up the worth of the books, so it's all made easy for the group because they have gathered the necessary expertise.
I didn't hate the book, in fact I quite enjoyed it, but afterwards I felt unsatisfied by it. The author's innate intelligence and the skill of her editors did not get that the book was too unrealistic ever to be true, and that well-versed readers might catch on to that, despite the quotes from Austen and the pleasant setting. So: unfulfilling, enjoyable, but not on the soul-deep level that a good book requires.… (altro)
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 3
- Utenti
- 1,525
- Popolarità
- #16,866
- Voto
- 3.9
- Recensioni
- 122
- ISBN
- 49
- Lingue
- 7
Fans of Jenner’s earlier novels and those who love historical fiction set in the mid-20th century will not want to miss this book!
Recommended.
Audience: Adults.
(Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)… (altro)