Diane Barnes's Reviews > Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend

I am amazed at how readable and interesting this book was. So full of Austen tidbits, but also mini-biographies and reading lists of the authors that came before her and influenced her in some way. How being wives and mothers dictated what they could write, how having no rights or money of their own made them dependent on social acceptance. It's also full of the ways and means of rare book dealers and collectors and the ways the internet has changed so much at making so many out of print books available to read. Not only is her knowledge extensive, but she's a funny and expressive writer, never afraid to interject her own opinion into the narrative.

Don't let the size of this deter you, at least 100 pages are the bibliography and lists of books. I have added at least 10 books to my own reading list, and when I reread Austen's novels, as I plan to do soon, what I learned here will increase my enjoyment of them. I got a copy of this from my library, but feel like I need a copy of my own now, to put on the shelf with my Austen novels.