Customer Reviews

Two Guys Read Jane Austen

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With a shocking title like "Two Guys Read Jane Austen," you can expect some very intriguing observations and hilarious insights into the minds of two guy writers as they wrestle with the brilliance of Jane Austen.

My favorite quote from the book is...

"Jane Austen (through Elizabeth) is a witty, rebellious voice for intelligence and passion in the face of those stuffy British strictures. I love this. I love a woman (or a man, for that matter) who has no need to win anyone over."

If you are a Jane Austen fan, or just completely obsessed with her - this book is a must have to add to your collection.

Who knows...They may have just started a reading revolution among men?

What a pleasure .... all three of Terry's and Steve's books have been such a delight to read. The insights they share about the characters in the books, as well as insights into their personal views make for a very unique and fun read. Also inspiring - although I'd read some Jane Austen in the past, (Steve, I, too, managed to skip Jane Austen even though I had an English minor, and had only read JA for my own pleasure)this book compelled me to start re-reading the author's works, and was surprised to find her writing not nearly as complex or onerous as I had imagined. Terry and Steve - don't stop now - keep on writing in this genre, and include more of your BTW-type entries. Loved it!

"Jane's got more adoring female fans than Brad Pitt, and my guess is they're more intelligent too!" Terrence Hill

Given the choice of reading Pride and Prejudice or watching a football game, which do you think the average all American male would choose? If this is a no brainer, you have recognized the male/female divide of how men and women think and feel differently, and the reason why the "Two Guys", Steve and Terry were lured by their wives into writing their new book Two Guys Read Jane Austen in the first place.

Lifelong friends for over fifty years, these "Two Guys" are a perfect pair to chat about a subject where most men fear to tread. Both professional writers with impressive resumes, Steve Chandler is a best selling author, business coach and corporate trainer, and Terrence Hill, award winning adman, poet, short story and stage play writer, they add clout and experience to their observations. This is their third book in the critically-acclaimed "Two Guys" series and may be their biggest challenge yet - Jane Austen - who the guys admit is a hot property and hope might garner big royalties ala best selling author John Grisham! They are of course only kidding, typical of this epistolary missive that is formatted like an e-mail in box with actual correspondence between the two authors as they read Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park together. What evolves is not only an insightful and funny male perspective of two typically female favorite classic books, but their views on Jane Austen's impact on modern culture, and pretty much all around story swapping guy style.

What I found most enjoyable about this book was their open attitude to read and understand Austen without prejudice. They give honest opinions of her strengths and weaknesses in her plot, characters and style, but do not bash or berate her because her themes of marriage, romance and view of her society appeal mostly to women. Instead, she has become androgynous, and enjoyed for her brilliant style, biting wit and memorable characters. Add to that the "Two Guys" special anecdotes and personal stories from their lives and modern media, and you have a hilarious and `Austentatious' combination. A quick fun read, this book would be an excellent gift for any Austen fan, or Austen fan who wants to prove to their significant other that their admiration of all things Austen is not just a girl thing!

Laurel Ann, Austenprose

Steve Chandler and Terrence N. Hill collaborate in writing a third in the two guys read series. I have read many books by Steve Chandler in the past and have added him to my list of favorite authors. Now I will be watching for more of Terry Hill. For some reason I had not noted the earlier titles in this series but was immediately attracted to "Two Guys Read Jane Austen."

In a writers group I attend is an active member of the Jane Austen Society. We all feel her presence when she is in attendance and hold her in high esteem. She is articulate, brilliant, and reserved with perhaps some of Jane Austen in her spirit. I couldn't wait to tell her I was reading a book about Jane's writing by two guys.

I was expecting Steve and Terry to perhaps make a mockery of men reading Jane Austen and was pleasantly surprised to find Terry's comment regarding her brilliance and excellence as a writer.

The book follows a unique format which I believe was true as well of the earlier books. This approach makes perfect sense in a day of blogs, e-mail, and the myriad of modern communication techniques popular today. Using e-mails Steve and Terry reviewed "Pride and Prejudice" and "Mansfield Park." Steve and Terry kept in touch via e-mails from New York, Mexico, Phoenix, Santa Monica and Vancouver, Canada, and other cities throughout this project. These e-mails became the core of this amazing book.

Within the e-mail correspondence were shared memories, personal philosophy, as well as references to restaurants, hotels, or people observed while in the process of writing. These comments always led into a discussion of the book, Jane's skill as a writer or comments on one of Jane's characters.

In light of the title of the book, I thought Terry summed up the essence of Jane's writing: "Jane Austen allows male reader a secret look into the minds of brilliant, creative, virtuous women...Austen's heroines are each true to themselves and win in the end. Classy women who combine high intelligence with inner strength and virtue."

"Two Guys Read Jane Austen" is entertainingly, funny, conversational, and a great tribute to the brilliance of Jane Austen as a writer.

Clever, insightful, hilarious, and a joy to read. These "guys" know how to dissect anything and make complete sense. I could not put it down. Bravo for another winner to the franchise. What's next????

Bravo! These two guys seem to have invented a new genre that's both amusing and profound. Their entertainingly digressive but invariably insightful cross country exchanges of emails reveal as much about the long distance collaborators as they do about their subject. The book is great fun to read and bound to turn a lot of people onto Jane Austen. She deserves it. The publisher, however, deserves a kick in the butt for the unprepossessing cover. But don't judge the book by its cover. You'll love its innards.

Terry and Steve have done it again. And, this time their book is about a novelist I find incredibly appealing, Jane Austen. What really thrilled me was that even with my love of all things Jane, in reading this book I learned a wealth of interesting new facts and gained new insights about a fascinating author who spent much of her life defying convention. Of course, since this is a Two Guys book, much of the book is filled with the guys musings on life and its meaning, the nature of family, the bonds of friendship and all the idiosyncrasies and humor to be found in the human condition. And, along with all the humor expressed, this is also a book with great heart and soul. Bravo Guys, I can't wait to see what's next.

I thought this book was a bit light, literally and figuratively. At only 126 pages, there was plenty of room for the authors to do more exploring, particularly when you disregard passages about Mexican cartels and the like. There were several spots where I felt there were missing e-mails, as though the authors said "Let's cut out this irrelevant stuff, except the stuff we think is funny, that stuff's ok to leave in, no matter how irrelevant." It was also a bit awkward to be reading e-mails between these two life long friends in which they reference something in the past, and then need to go on to explain the background, which the other obviously knows, but the reader does not (so this book is not really casual e-mail exchanges, because it is done all along knowing the reader is out there in the future). It wasn't natural, and would have been better footnoted, I think. On the plus side, the authors did their homework, reading biographies, annotated texts, and critical essays along with the novels, which added insight I wasn't expecting. Slicing out the fat and adding more meat would have improved this book immensely.