Emma Spanish Language Audiobook Translated by José María Valverde and Narrated by Nuria Mediavilla

My book club is reading Emma, my pick, and I was hoping to get a copy of the audiobook from the Libby app to listen to.

I enjoy listening to audiobooks and sometimes when I hear the book instead of reading it, I pick up on something that I hadn’t noticed before. Plus it is so easy to play it when cleaning, cooking, driving, etc.

However, when searching for audiobooks Libby only has two Emma copies. One has an extremely long waitlist while the other was currently available. The first I had been on the waitlist forever and a day and had no illusions of it getting to me before we had our book club meeting. I did think it was odd that one audiobook should have so many holds and a six month waitlist and the other none, but I reasoned it as I must have just been lucky to spot a new addition to the app before all the others. I borrowed it and downloaded it immediately.

Oh well…

However, when I began listening to it I realized that it was in Spanish, not English.

From Clueless

As I have mentioned before I am Mexican but I am not fluent in Spanish (although I wish I was!). When it comes to understanding Spanish and translating it to English I do a lot better with the written word than hearing it. I think another reason why I struggled with this audiobook is that Austen is using words that aren’t as commonly used today, translated into Spanish, and I’m trying to retranslate it back into English. Although some lines I had memorized I could still follow along with, for instance the opening line.

So while I decided to give the audiobook a try it was a struggle. That is no reflection to the actual piece as I did think it was a good adaption as felt Nuria Mediavilla did very well in narrating. The only thing I had an issue with so that some of the pronunciation of the words follow the “Spanish” Spanish dialect which means that some of the words have the “th” sound; for example diez, diez y ocho, etc. are pronounced dieth, dieth y ocho, etc.

I would recommend it to those who are fluent in Spanish and looking for a Jane Austen audiobook to give it a listen. Although the Spanish “th” might be hard to hear if that’s not the type of Spanish you are used to hearing.

For more on Emma, go to Clueless Party Game: Ugh As If! Edition

For more audiobooks, go to The Real Jane Austen Audiobook Narrated by Kate Reading

I Won the SaChasi Blends Giveaway

Back at the end of February a friend entered a SaChasi blends giveaway and I decided to as well. Part of the entry was to share what else have you used tea for and I replied that I have used it for my dry or irritated skin, made a hair rinse, and have baked quite a few tea-infused items: such as Crispy, Chewy, Matcha Green Tea Cookies; The Picture of Earl Grey Tea Cookies; Lavender Earl Grey Tea Shortbread Cookies; Cranberry-Spice Scones; Lavender and Earl Grey Scones; Cranberry Chai Scones; and Brown Butter Matcha Brownies.

Unfortunately, after I won I realized I hadn’t paid attention to the giveaway rules and that it was actually only open to UK residents. I apologized and said I would understand if they would need to choose another winner, as it was clearly my fault for not reading the rules correctly. However, they decided to send me my giveaway prize in exchange for a review. You know me and free, I just can’t resist.

I ended up winning a sample bag of Maple Pecan Pie Tea.

A slice of heaven. Famous for serving a sweet, buttery crunch with every glazed, nutty bite – our Sri Lankan black tea and wholesome rooibos perfectly recaptures this delicious North American dessert. All intricately enhanced with a sprinkling of indulgent, yet bountiful, carob and creamy lucuma.

SaChasi Maple Pecan Pie Tea

Ingredients: Ceylon black tea (Orange Pekoe), rooibos, dried apple, dates (rice flour), organic cacao husks, organic carob powder & lucuma powder, pau d’arco, vanilla powder, orange blossom and natural flavouring

I tried the tea and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was delicious, comforting, sweet, and a little nutty. I have to say this tasted much better than a lot of other pie flavored teas I’ve had before. A lot of pie flavored teas are either extremely weak and need multiple teaspoons or tablespoons like the Pinky Up brand. SaChasi gave you a full flavored tea that didn’t require adding extra amounts of loose leaf to your tea cup/infuser.

Prices range from $4 for a sample size (20g) to $8 for 50g and $16 for 100g.

As Wednesdays we have tea (one of my book clubs meets on Wednesdays) I decided to share the tea with the other members.

Two of us members loved the tea while the other two thought it was a great Pecan Pie Tea, but could use extra maple pieces or maple sweetener to really make it pop for them.

I still thoroughly enjoyed it and drank most of the pot all by myself! (Sorry book club members, once I start drinking tea it can be hard to stop).

For more giveaway posts, go to I Won the Ellery Adams’ September 2020 Giveaway + My Review of the First Two Books in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society Series

For more tea posts, go to Magical Matcha Latte

A few years back I was given a collection of five teas, A World of Teas. As I was about to try them out, I started thinking: which books would best suit these teas? After all, nothing goes together better than a good book and a delicious cup of tea.

Thats me

Since then I try my best to repeat it whenever I review new teas. 🙂

Let’s spill the tea.

I was trying to think of which book best went with this tea. I needed something comforting (a comforting read), something that was relaxing but sweet and fun; along with having a few nutty characters thrown in there…and finally decided this tea paired perfectly with Emma.

For those of you who haven’t read it, Emma is the story of a girl who has been mistress of her house and doted on by her father. After her governess marries (a match she believes she put together) she becomes bored and intends on trying her hand at matchmaking. She pygmalions her new acquaintance, Harriet Smith, and plans to set her up with the new minister. Things do not go according to plan as her matches do not take hold and her “creation” takes a life of their own.

For me Emma is a fun comedy (although it does have its dramatic parts) with quite a few nutty characters and situations. We have Emma’s failed matchmaking, Miss Bates’ silly chatter, Mr. Woodhouse hypochondria, etc. Everyone in the book is guilty of being silly at one point or another.

For me it is a comforting read and even though Mr. Woodhouse wouldn’t approve of the sweetness of maple pecan pie; when I drank the tea it made me think of spending a chilly day by a fire (or heater), and the following quote popped in my head:

For more Emma, go to The Emma Project

Jane Austen Children’s Stories: Emma

Emma (Jane Austen Children’s Stories #4) by Jane Austen, adapted by Gemma Barder

I did not originally plan to purchase both the Northanger Abbey and Emma adaptations in this series so close together. If I had I would have done a dual post like I did for the Babylit series. I was just going to purchase the Northanger Abbey one, but a couple weeks after my cousin’s birthday party I discovered that my friend moved her daughter’s birthday party up to the first weekend in June. I needed a present stat and I always buy her a book and toy for her birthday.

So when I was trying to find a book for a 7 year old, the first thing that popped in my head was to get another one book from the Jane Austen Children’s Stories.

As I mentioned in my previous review, any time I spot a children’s book that has to do with Jane Austen, I try and purchase it to gift to them and hopefully influence spark a love of Jane Austen in them.

The Jane Austen Children’s Stories series takes the text of Jane Austen and adapts it for children who are reading on their own and want something longer than a beginning reader, but not quite ready for thick chapter books. Each novel has easy to read text, illustrations, but at the same time still retains the plot of the original novels.

The recommended age for this series is 7-10 years old. The series has adapted Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Love and Friendship. You can buy them individually at ~$7 a paperback (hardcover is ~$12 per book) or in a set of all seven in paperback form (plus a journal) for ~$27.

Emma is the story of a girl who has been mistress of her house and doted on by her father. After her governess marries (a match she believes she put together) she becomes bored and intends on trying her hand at matchmaking. She pygmalions her new acquaintance, Harriet Smith, and plans to set her up with the new minister. Things do not go according to plan as her matches do not take hold and her “creation” takes a life of her own.

While I enjoyed the Northanger Abbey review, I loved this adaption of Emma. It was done a little different with it starting off with a breakdown of the characters, a who’s who of everyone.

The book easily captures the attention of the reader as it leans in to the already comedic tones of Emma. The illustrations were also well done, no complaints of the men’s outfits here.

I really enjoyed it, and I think the 7 year old who I purchased it for will love it as well. If you are looking for Jane Austen books for elementary schooled children in your life, then I definitely recommend giving this series a read.

For more Jane Austen Children’s Stories, go to Northanger Abbey

For more Jane Austen children’s books, go to Jane Austen (Little People, BIG DREAMS)

For more on Emma book adaptations, go to Emma Manga

For more on Emma, go to Lean on Me: Austentatious (2015)

The Magician’s Nephew Tea Party/Book Club: Mini Apple Pies

So every Wednesday, starting in October, I have been a part of a Tea Party/Bible Study/Book Club on The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. This is different from my book club and the Book Club Picks I have been reviewing (and desperately need to catch up on). The first week we had Cederberg Tea Company Rooibos + Ginger Tea, Cranberry-Spice Scones with Maple Cream, Cucumber-Four Peppercorn Goat Cheese Canapés, Ham and Cheese Tea Sandwiches, Fotina & Pork Puffed Pastry, and Mini Apple Pies.

I have been posting the recipes from the first meeting, but am ending on the last thing we had during that session: Mini Apple Pies

Today’s recipe is one that I’ve shared before, but made mini. It an easy recipe and a delicious one. After all, who can resist pie?

Ingredients:

Pie Crust

• Pre-made Pie Dough

Filling:

• 1/2 Cup – 1 Cup of All-Purpose Flour
• 6-7 Granny Smith Apples peeled, and cut into slices
• 1 Cup of White Sugar
• 1 Cup of Brown Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon of Cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons of Butter

Directions:

1. Peel and slice the apples. When cutting up the apples, make sure to remove the hard pieces where the seed grows along with any spots or blemishes.
2. Preheat the oven to 375°
3. Combine the apples, with the brown and white sugar.
4. Add the flour and cinnamon, mixing them all together.
5. Roll out the dough and using a cookie cutter or small bowl, cut round circles out-large enough to fill a cupcake/muffin pan.
6. Lay the apples down on the dough in the pan.
7. Chop the two tablespoons of butter and put a little in each mini pie.
8. Place the second ball of dough down and roll it out into a large circle, cutting it to create a lattice top.
9. Add a dash of cinnamon and sugar on top.
10. Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

These were delicious and a great final piece to our tea time. After all, as Mr. Woodhouse says:

For more from The Magician’s Nephew Tea Party/Book Club, go to Fotina & Pork Puffed Pastry

For more recipes, go to Tea Time Magazine’s Ham and Cheese Tea Sandwiches

For more apple pie, go to Are Dean Winchester and Jane Austen Kindred Spirits?

For more desserts, go to The Picture of Earl Grey Tea Cookies

For more tea posts, Cucumber-Four Peppercorn Goat Cheese Canapés

Dull Times Breed Disaster

So back in 2015 I started going through Emma to celebrate her 200th anniversary.

I paused her to go through Northanger Abbey and Persuasion for their anniversary years, but have decided to throw her back into the mix with the others.

Alright!

So as I was reading, I was thinking what a boring life Emma must have been living at the time “her story” starts.

So Emma and her sister were raised by a father who doted on them and the governess Miss Taylor. Miss Taylor was more a sister than an elder, so I imagine the girls must have had a lot of fun together.

Girls night!

But then Isabella married John Knightley and there was just the two girls.

And then Miss Taylor married…leaving Emma alone with a hypochondriac father.

And who did her father have for constant companions?

Besides her father, Miss and Mrs. Bates. Now Mrs. Bates is very old and Miss Bates is a kind, sweet woman but to Emma she is also dull, older, and not one Emma could have interesting conversation with.

And who else? Mrs. Goddard, the woman who owns and runs a boarding house. Also kind, caring, but much older than Emma and another she would find dreadfully dull.

Ugh!

Yes these were the ones that Emma spent most of her days with after the marriage of Miss Taylor to Mr. Weston.

Now what about Mr. Knightley, you may ask? Yes, it is true that he and Mr. Elton visited but…

“…Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies [were] almost always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and carried home so often…” –Emma, pg 17

“These were the ladies that whom Emma found herself very frequently able to collect…She was delighted to see her father look comfortable…but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.” –Emma, pg 18-19

Ugh, I’m so bored!

No wonder she plunges herself heart and soul into breaking up Harriet and Robert and matching up Harriet and Mr. Elton. She bored out of her socks! Can you imagine spending every day for long periods of time with Miss Bates?

And then triple that with Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Goddard.

I think I’d be going mad for anything else to bring “excitement” into my life.

This made me think of when I was a child and mother brought me to all kinds of adult functions. She is a pastor and we had to go to everything, and I remember being bored out of my skull and wishing there was another kid there to do things with.

Good thing I had my books-

As I grew older I learned to take part in the conversation and grew less bored with being with people not in my years-but then again none of the people I have spent long periods of time with were as difficult to be with as Miss Bates.

Blah, blah

Poor Emma-especially as one who doesn’t really play, read, sing, paint, embroider, etc-she has no escape. NO escape that is, except meddling!

For more on Emma Woodhouse, go to Jane Austen Chinese Zodiac

For more on Mrs. and Miss Bates, go to Should We Pity Miss Bates or Strive to Be Her?

For more on Mrs. Goddard, go to A Visit to Highbury: Another View of Emma

For more Emma, go to Pride, Prejudice, and Personal Statements