Why Jane Austen?
By Rachel Brownstein
ISBN: 978-0-231-15390-4 cloth
Price: $29.50 / £20.50
In the book, Rachel M. Brownstein considers constructions of Jane Austen as a heroine, moralist, satirist, romantic, woman, and author and the changing notions of these categories. She finds echoes of Austen’s insights and techniques in contemporary Jane-o-mania, the commercially driven, erotically charged popular vogue that aims paradoxically to preserve and liberate, to correct and collaborate with old Jane.
Library Journal:
“this book will delight devoted readers and students of Jane Austen and may inspire readers who have disliked Austen in the past.”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/ljinprintcurrentissue/889860-403/arts__humanities_reviews_may.html.csp
The New York Times Book Review included a review of Rachel M. Brownstein’s Why Jane Austen?. The review praises Brownstein for her “excellent…overview of Austen’s ascent of the Olympian literary slope” and calls her “a superb critic, seen at her best when illuminating Austen’s mastery of significant detail.”
Seattle Times:
“along the way, the reader, too, may discover in Brownstein’s book what the author discovers in Austen: a means of transporting ourselves to a more gracious and better-ordered world.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2014957666_br08austen.html?syndication=rss
Los Angeles Review of Books:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/9827382304/just-like-a-woman
Bluestalking:
http://bluestalking.typepad.com/the_bluestalking_reader/2011/06/why-jane-austen-by-rachel-brownstein.html
Commonweal:
http://commonwealmagazine.org/verdicts/?p=413
Austenprose:
http://austenprose.com/2011/08/27/why-jane-austen-by-rachel-m-brownstein-%E2%80%93-a-review/
The Montreal Review
http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Why-Jane-Austen.php
Yale Alumni Magazine http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2011_09/inprint.html
