Review of Lori Smith's A Walk With Jane Austen

The other day I was feeling low -- physically, mentally, and spiritually. So I did what I usually do when I feel I've hit a wall and just want to go into hiding from Life for a while. I drew myself a nice warm bath, complete with bath salts, and soaked in it while getting lost in a book that had been calling to me for some time now, quietly imploring to be read properly, without any distractions about.

Just the opening pages of Lori Smith’s A Walk With Jane Austen: A Journey Into Adventure, Love, and Faith -- the introduction, the map of England, the chapter titles and tantalizing subtitles -- had me dreaming about places I hadn’t read about yet, and wishing I had made more of my time in England. Lori’s memoir chronicles her journey through England as she visited the places where Jane Austen and her friends and family lived, to view with her own eyes the realm from which Austen drew her inspiration. Lori’s trek across the country turned into a quest not only to learn more about Austen, but also to understand her own life and moral character more deeply. Smith has amazingly blended personal memoir, travel narrative, and literary appreciation into a cohesive book. This is no small task.

Smith’s displays a clear understanding of Jane’s life and times, an understanding which couples the known facts about Austen’s life with intuition gained from thorough reading of her works. The most eloquent and inspiring literature professor I had in college truly believed that a deep understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of literature could improve the quality of one's life. I think Lori Smith is living proof of this. She connects many of the lessons in Austen’s work with her own search for religious faith, romantic love, physical healing, and personal humility. Thankfully, she does this in a way that never feels contrived. Through the course of this book, Smith learns (from Jane and from Life) a greater acceptance and love for herself and her own life.

I appreciate Smith’s ability to question her faith and criticize the shortcomings of modern American Christianity in a manner that was thoughtful and sincere. I admired the candor with her readers, and much more, her honesty with herself. That is a difficult thing to achieve. As she observes, "It's possible to live all our lives without understanding who we really are…" Memoir is such a difficult genre to write. In order to invite others into your life you must first know who you are, and then be willing to lay it all out there in front of friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues, and of course critics and complete strangers. I am absolutely in awe of anyone with the courage to do this (much less the interesting life experiences to write about).

Smith’s positive outlook on life that has prompted her to take action when opportunities arose, realizing that she could “live [her] dreams, or … just talk about them." I imagine that at some point she questioned whether anyone would be bothered to want to read the musings of a young single woman traveling through England in search of love, faith, and Jane Austen. The answer is yes. It is a compelling and inspiring book. I suspect that many of my readers will feel a kindred-ness of spirit with Lori, and not just in her desire to appreciate Jane more fully, but in her quest to understand herself and her place in the world. This book will surely be an inspiration to anyone who reads it -- whether they are inspired to travel, to know Jane better, or to examine the role of faith in their lives (or all of the above!). Follow in Lori’s footsteps and take a walk with Jane today – you won't regret it!

(* To make amends for taking a ridiculously long time to review this book, I would like to give away a copy to a lucky reader. If you would like to be entered, please comment on this post indicating such. The book will be released on Amazon.com this Tuesday 16 October. I will accept entries only through midnight Wednesday the 17th so I can get the book out to the winner in a timely manner. Good luck!)