Love Friendship, Whit Stillman
Love Friendship, Whit Stillman
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Love & Friendship
In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

Author: Whit Stillman

Narrator: Matt Addis

Unabridged: 7 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/03/2016

Synopsis

A sharp comedy of manners, and a fiendishly funny treat for Jane Austen and Whit Stillman fans alike.

Impossibly beautiful, disarmingly witty, and completely self-absorbed: Meet Lady Susan Vernon, both the heart and the thorn of Love & Friendship. Recently widowed with a daughter who's coming of age as quickly as their funds are dwindling, Lady Susan makes it her mission to find them wealthy husbands -- and fast.

But when her attempts to secure their futures result only in the wrath of a prominent conquest's wife and the title of 'most accomplished coquette in England', Lady Susan must rethink her strategy. Unannounced, she arrives at her brother-in-law's country estate. Here she intends to take refuge -- in no less than luxury, of course -- from the colorful rumors trailing her, while finding another avenue to 'I do'. Before the scandalizing gossip can run its course, though, romantic triangles ensue.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kerry on June 01, 2016

I was very excited to see that there was a new Jane Austen movie coming out. The film, Love and Friendship, was based on the Whit Stillman book, Love and Friendship, which was in turn based upon the Jane Austen novel, Lady Susan. Since I hadn’t read either of the two books, I decided it would be int......more

Goodreads review by QNPoohBear on June 22, 2016

Ostensibly written by Lady Susan Vernon's nephew by marriage in 1858, this is an attempt to vindicate Lady Susan, who, in the original novella, is the most awful mother and an accomplished flirt. The nephew claims that anonymous spinster maligned his aunt by making up certain situations and dialogue......more

Goodreads review by Elisabetta on February 15, 2019

Deliziosa e simpatica questa rivisitazione di Lady Susan. Ci troviamo così di fronte a uno scritto di Rufus Martin-Colonna de Cesari-Rocchi, un lontano parente di sir Martin che cerca in tutti i modi di riabilitare l’onore di Lady Susan, che la “scrittrice zitella” ha calunniato con i suoi falsi scri......more

Goodreads review by ValeReads on March 19, 2023

Jane would have loved this. It is an absolute scream. Funnier even than the film (which, I think, came first). Definitely the best Austen homage fiction I've ever read. Bravo, Mr. Stillman. You've done yourself and the anonymous lady author proud. The Austenite, be it gentleman or lady, who has not......more

Goodreads review by Meredith (Austenesque Reviews) on August 02, 2016

Lady Susan by “A Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Historian” (Note: This review is coming from the perspective of someone who has not yet had the pleasure of seeing the movie, Love and Friendship, but has previously read Jane Austen’s epistolary novel, Lady Susan.) TYPE OF AUSTENESQUE NOVEL: Retellin......more

Quotes

PRAISE FOR LOVE & FRIENDSHIP: THE BOOK

"A postmodern confection [that's] very, very funny."--Penelope Green, New York Times

"In the ever-booming Austen spinoff industry, where paeans to Mr. Darcy are the norm, rewriting a work of the master's in the guise of one of her detractors makes for an eccentrically cheeky tribute."--Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker

"A merry comedy of pride, prejudice, and duplicity.... Silly, sly, eccentric characters and brisk chatter make for a diverting romp."--Kirkus Reviews

"Lady Susan is finally getting some long overdue respect."--Alexandra Alter,New York Times

"Witty and delightful."--BookPage

"Both quirky and hilarious."--Publishers Weekly

"Lady Susan remains deliciously wicked."--Julia Felsenthal, Vogue

"[A] delicately sincere inversion of Austen's amused irony.... Stillman's gravity comes from the way he both understands the terrors of social relations--the pursuit of love and friendship--and also admires all strategies in artifice that might soften these terrors, subvert the tyranny of misinterpretation, and restore a version of utopia."--Adam Thirlwell, New York Review of Books

"Show[s] a deep familiarity with [Austen's] life, work, and times."--Laura Miller,Slate

"Wickedly funny."--Holly Parmalee, Serendipity

"Stillman has a fine eye for social niceties."--Library Journal, Editor's Pick

"If you like your Austen subversive, cruel, funny and outrageous, then you will love Stillman's Love & Friendship."--Paula Byrne, The Times (UK)

"One of the classiest book-to-movie novelizations that's ever existed."--Rebecca Pahle, Film Journal International

PRAISE FOR LOVE & FRIENDSHIP:THE FILM

"A racy delight."--Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

"[A] fast, precise, and giddily dialectical costume romp.... Stillman captures the exquisite eroticism of high-society manners."--Richard Brody, New Yorker

"Delightfully droll.... Stillman so effortlessly, elegantly bridges the gap between his conniving aristocrats and Austen's that it's difficult to say where one's sensibility ends and the other's begins."--Kyle Smith, New York Post

"Flat-out hilarious -- find me a funnier screen stab at Austen, and I'm tempted to offer your money back personally."--Tim Robey, Telegraph

"A supremely elegant and delicately filigreed adaptation of Jane Austen's epistolary novella Lady Susan."--Justin Chang, Variety

"The perfect marriage between Stillman's absurdist wit and Austen's period manners."--Anthony D'Alessandro, Deadline

"So clever in its repartee."—Flavorwire

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