Gill Hornby on Jane Austen and why we need more funny family novels
'The only thing to do with novels is to set them in the past. The present is ungraspable,' Gill Hornby says with the axiomatic certainty of Jane Austen.
When we meet at Kintbury station in Berkshire, the bestselling author, 66, has just returned from Los Angeles, where she's been promoting the BBC adaptation of her novel Miss Austen, the first in her series about the beloved 19th-century author and her large and lively family. On our walk to her home we cover much of the 'ungraspable' present — Trump, wars, unhinged tech billionaires, dating trends and the rise of the Reform Party — before concluding we have more appetite for Regency England. Even if it wasn't much fun for women.
'It's an appealing world
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