Living with Jane Austen is indeed an appropriate title for Janet Todd's incisive but gentle investigation of Austen's life. Weaving her observations and sympathies with her studies and reflections of her own life, Todd gives us her personal thoughts about Austen and her life. Approaching her studies of Austen and defining each category of Austen's life, Todd incorporates such topics as home, significant deaths, relations, illness, even patriotism in an effort to look comprehensively at Austen's life and thoughts. In Austen's letters and books, which Todd has studied, she comments on her own "desultory sort of writing." In fact, this self-evaluation of her writing seems unfair, as the writing in the book is anything but desultory, and it approaches Austen with a fully comprehensive and empathetic focus.

Todd has carried out an exhaustive look at Jane Austen, and she has left out none of the important considerations of Austen as a writer, as a sister, as a lover of nature, as one in possession of a brilliant mind, and as a friend. Todd also incorporates her knowledge of and writing about Mary Wollstonecraft as an important way to consider the balance of important emphases in Jane Austen's life.

Having read a number of books about Jane Austen (although certainly not all of them), I found this articulate, sympathetic, and considerate examination of Austen's life and of her approachable investments in her family, her neighbors, and the characters in her books to be revelatory and of great interest. Todd has skillfully studied Austen and at the same time, has incorporated her own life into her curiosity about Austen's motives, and her perspective on those around her. Austin's surroundings also become not just important, but Todd carefully and kindly relates them to her own considerations of Austen's world. Any and all followers of Jane Austen will be able to learn much about her and her environment, and Todd must be heralded for her brilliant observations in this book.

Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book.