Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan by Ted Scheinman

 

Title:  Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan

Author:  Ted Scheinman

Narrated by:  Ted Scheinman

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Length: Approximately 3 hours and 43 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com.  Thank-you!

 Do you have a fandom that you are a part of?   Sports, comics, movies, shows, books – there are a lot of things that people become part of a fan group.  Perhaps one of the most surprising would be the worldwide fandom for an author that has been dead for two hundred years, Jane Austen.

 Ted Scheinman is the son of a respected Jane Austen scholar.  He grew up with Jane Austen in the background, but wasn’t a super fan himself.  When he is in graduate school, he got the opportunity to participate in the first ever UNC-Chapel Hill Jane Austen Summer Camp.  Ted becomes immersed in the Janeite world and also attends his first Jane Austen Society of North American (JASNA) conference in Minneapolis as well.  This memoir is part academic discussing Austen’s works and information about the author herself, and also a look at the fans and fandom that is still running strong.  I loved listening to this on audiobook narrated by the author as it really felt like his personal tale.  It’s his experience learning about this fandom and he tells about all of the very different people that inhabit it from scholars to a couple keeping their romance alive with the dances.  He also gets to dress and play the part of Mr. Darcy which sounds like a lot of fun.

 I really loved learning about Rudyard Kipling’s love for Jane Austen and the discussion of the short story he wrote about Janeites who were veterans of the first world war.  I need to find this story!

Author Ted Scheinman was a fun narrator and I really enjoyed listening to his story.

 This was the January selection for the JASNA Northwoods book discussion.  I missed the discussion this month as I was sadly traveling back to Michigan for my Grandma’s funeral.

Overall, this was a fun look into the world of Jane Austen fandom.