By Ronni Berke and Carol Costello
Move over, Angelina - make room for Jane. Jane Austen.
This beloved author of the ultimate "chick" novel turns 235 years old this week, yet she still sets hearts aflutter.
Austen's novels, where the art of conversation between the sexes reigns supreme, remain popular even among today's technology-obsessed, multi-tasking young women. On Facebook, Austen has 246,952 fans, who call themselves "Janeites." The Jane Austen Society of America has 65 regional groups and counts 4,000 members.
What is it about her books that resonates with today's women? In part, the Austen obsession is a rejection of what passes for modern romance, in such movies like the upcoming "Friends with Benefits," about friendship, sex, and then taking whatever comes.
In Austen's world, nothing is sexier than the intellectual sparring between a man and a woman.
"There needs to be more communication between partners. And I think that's something Jane Austen talks a lot about and something that isn't talked about all now - it's the idea that women are completely different from men," says Jaclyn Green-Stock, 23, a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America in New York.
That sentiment appeals not only to some young feminists, but to more traditional women too - although for different reasons.
Karin Agness, 26, who writes a conservative blog called Enlightenedwomen.org, says women "should embrace our femininity as women and men should embrace their masculine side and recognize the value of that and don't try to fight against it or be something that you're not."
To 25-year-old Janeite Allison Bruce, Austen's brilliance takes that concept even further. "The great thing about Jane Austen is that the relationships aren't old fashioned so much as they are real," says Bruce. "There is nothing contrived, there is nothing that rings false."
But aren't there other examples than Jane Austen to look up to? "It's so difficult to find that," says Green-Stock. "Especially with today's movies and today's books and the idea that we need to constantly be getting the new thing. Sometimes we have to go back and look at what happened in the past."