Princeton NJ Family Events Calendar

Great Minds Salon: Jane Austen, Superstar: From Classic Author to Pop-Culture Phenomenon

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Thursday May 20, 2021
8:00 PM

Sponsored by The Jewish Center Princeton - Register to receive Zoom link

Deborah Yaffe, an award-winning journalist and author, has been a passionate Jane Austen fan since first reading Pride and Prejudice at age ten. She joined the Jane Austen Society of North America at sixteen; owns an impressive collection of Austen-themed coffee mugs, bookmarks, tote bags, and DVDs; and works from a home office presided over by a Jane Austen Action Figure. As a newspaper reporter in New Jersey and California for more than thirteen years, Yaffe covered education, the law, and state government. Her first book, Other People’s Children: The Battle for Justice and Equality in New Jersey’s Schools, is a gripping narrative history of the state’s efforts to provide equal educational opportunities to rich and poor schoolchildren. Her second book, Among the Janeites: A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom, was published in August 2013 to excellent reviews; the New York Times Book Review called it “amusing and sometimes mind-boggling.” Yaffe, a longtime member of the Jewish Center, works as a freelance writer and lives in Princeton Junction. She and her husband have two now-adult children, both graduates of TJC’s religious school.