Lauren Mangioni

In my mind, BBC’s 1996 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice will always be my clear favourite but I stayed up very late to watch all four episodes of their 2009 Emma miniseries starring Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller. I adore all the empire-line dresses and riding jackets and of course, the love between Emma and her Mr. Knightley. I think I was born in the wrong era.

Screencaps source.

I’m not sure how I feel about my favourite novel, Pride and Prejudice, being re-written and re-released in the 21st century under the new title Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. You read that correctly, zombies.

An excerpt from the novel;

“…She saw Mrs. Long struggle to free herself as two female dreadfuls bit into her head, cracking her skull like a walnut, and sending a shower of dark blood spouting as high as the chandeliers.” – Jezebel

Perhaps it’s not for me. But this could be a sneaky way of convincing the boyfriend to read a classic.

The saying implores us not to judge a book by it’s cover but when you go to the Book Cover Archive, it’s a little hard to obey.

I’m staying in tonight and, shock horror, I’m looking forward to it. I have my book, the football (the season has begun), Spanish food (chicken and capsicum tortillas with a side of chilli con queso) and Great Lake Swimmers new album.

I’ll also be tweeting and blogging so email me at lauren at laurenmangioni.com if you’re spending the night in too!

Through writer Rachel Hills, I was alerted to this article.

I’ll admit, I’ve read 50% of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. You know, the one that has teenage girls clawing each other like mad to get to main man Edward Cullen. I even saw the movie and yes, I did fall a little in love with him. But not to the same extent as one fan who had the (wasted) opportunity to meet Robert Pattinson and asked him to ‘bite her’.

The problem with the Twilight series is that it’s terrible. I gave up on the third instalment, Eclipse, not only because I got sick and tired of reading how perfectly beautiful vampire Edward is but because Meyer’s protagonist, Bella Swan, is hopelessly and to an extent, pathetically, in love with this tame, vegetarian vampire.

Where I was raised with strong female characters such as Lizzie Bennett, Jane Eyre, Jordon Baker and Clare Abshire, pre-teens of today are wooed by Edward Cullen’s unrealistic perfection and Bella Swan’s naivety and complete transformation from strong-willed, intelligent teenage ‘woman’ to lovesick girl whose complete reliance on Edward Cullen does nothing to implore young girls to stand up for themselves and not rely on the opposite sex for validation.

I guess it doesn’t help that I went through an Anne Rice stage. While no other fictitious vampire will ever compare to Rice’s Lestat, Jezebel has offered us a selection of seven vampires that are most definitely better than Edward Cullen.