“Reading with Jane Austen sets out to help us re-see the great novelist’s aims and achievements by carefully, clearly, and productively describing them alongside the significant writings of her best-loved contemporaries. Bander’s fine book will have you rereading Austen in engaging, surprising, and powerful new ways.” —Devoney Looser, author of Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane

“A delicious and rewarding experience. Bander introduces us to the authors and books that Jane Austen and her readers loved and admired, tracing the ways Austen both subverts conventions and clichés and reimagines what the novel can be. Reading with Jane Austen is a gift.” —Susan Allen Ford, author of What Jane Austen’s Characters Read (and Why)

“Light, bright, and sparkling, Bander's account of her own life of teaching and writing under the sign of Austen brought me enormous delight and deserves a place in every Austen fan's library.” —Jenny Davidson, author of Reading Jane Austen

“A meticulous and innovative study illuminating the literary culture that shaped Austen’s art. Bander draws on a lifetime spent with Austen and her precursors to reconstruct what Austen read and might have read—revealing new dimensions of her taste, intelligence, and creative engagement.” —Peter Sabor, coeditor of Jane Austen's Manuscript Works