100 books like The Jane Austen Society

By Natalie Jenner,

Here are 100 books that The Jane Austen Society fans have personally recommended if you like The Jane Austen Society. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Unmarriageable

Erica Wright Author Of Hollow Bones

From my list on retelling classic stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

Before fan fiction was popular, I would often daydream about the lives of my favorite book characters. Did Jane Eyre gain more confidence from her inheritance? Did Ponyboy find a way to survive his tragic childhood? Decades later, I gravitate toward retellings, often picking them up simply because I like the source material. Still, when I started working on this list, I realized what a daunting task I’d set myself. There are so many! And I haven’t even read two recently lauded titles: Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Percival Everett’s James. So hat in my hand, I present these favorites ranging from serious to light-hearted. 

Erica's book list on retelling classic stories

Erica Wright Why did Erica love this book?

I am a sucker for Jane Austen retellings, and this one is my favorite. Kamal’s characters are as vivid as their original inspirations from Pride and Prejudice.

The Pakistani setting also adds a layer of complexity. Even as the novel sweeps charmingly along, moments of social commentary cut through the lightness. Perhaps most satisfying is how Charlotte Lucas, here Sherry Looclus, gets a happier ending. 

By Soniah Kamal,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Unmarriageable as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“This inventive retelling of Pride and Prejudice charms.”—People
 
“A fun, page-turning romp and a thought-provoking look at the class-obsessed strata of Pakistani society.”—NPR

Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider.

A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys…


Book cover of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice

Katherine Cowley Author Of The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet

From my list on inspired by Jane Austen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was ten years old, and I loved the book so much that I reread it a few months later. In my teenage years and early twenties, I thought that I was like Elizabeth Bennet—she’s witty and opinionated, goes her own way, and loves to read books and play the pianoforte. As I grew older, I realized that in many ways I'm more like Mary Bennet (social situations can be difficult!). Jane Austen always offers me new insights into my life, and her stories have become a sort of mythology, providing fertile ground from which writers and filmmakers have created their own works.

Katherine's book list on inspired by Jane Austen

Katherine Cowley Why did Katherine love this book?

This is a brilliant book that you will want to read in print—not digitally—because, for every single page of Jane Austen’s classic novel, there is an accompanying page of annotations. This is a great book if you want to dive deeper into Pride and Prejudice. The annotations include pictures of carriages and locations in the novel; historical details that helped me understand property laws, relationships, and societal expectations; definitions and connotations of how words were used in Austen’s time, and much more. It’s written in a very readable style, and you can either read it from start to finish or skip around to your favorite passages.

By Jane Austen, David M. Shapard,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Annotated Pride and Prejudice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Product Description This first-ever fully annotated edition of one of the most beloved novels in the world is a sheer delight for Jane Austen fans. Here is the complete text of Pride and Prejudice with more than 2,300 annotations on facing pages, including: Explanations of historical context Rules of etiquette, class differences, the position of women, legal and economic realities, leisure activities, and more. Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings Parallels between the novel and Austen’s experience are revealed, along with writings that illuminate her beliefs and opinions. Definitions and clarifications Archaic words, words still in use whose…


Book cover of For Darkness Shows the Stars

Katherine Cowley Author Of The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet

From my list on inspired by Jane Austen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was ten years old, and I loved the book so much that I reread it a few months later. In my teenage years and early twenties, I thought that I was like Elizabeth Bennet—she’s witty and opinionated, goes her own way, and loves to read books and play the pianoforte. As I grew older, I realized that in many ways I'm more like Mary Bennet (social situations can be difficult!). Jane Austen always offers me new insights into my life, and her stories have become a sort of mythology, providing fertile ground from which writers and filmmakers have created their own works.

Katherine's book list on inspired by Jane Austen

Katherine Cowley Why did Katherine love this book?

Not only do I love Jane Austen, but I’ve always been a huge fan of both young adult novels and science fiction. This book combines all three interests! This retelling of Persuasion is set in a futuristic science fiction world in which class systems are alive and well and technology is being suppressed. I loved the second-chance romance between Elliot and Kai and the inventive use of the setting to create societal commentary.

By Diana Peterfreund,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked For Darkness Shows the Stars as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain…


Book cover of Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of)

Katherine Cowley Author Of The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet

From my list on inspired by Jane Austen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was ten years old, and I loved the book so much that I reread it a few months later. In my teenage years and early twenties, I thought that I was like Elizabeth Bennet—she’s witty and opinionated, goes her own way, and loves to read books and play the pianoforte. As I grew older, I realized that in many ways I'm more like Mary Bennet (social situations can be difficult!). Jane Austen always offers me new insights into my life, and her stories have become a sort of mythology, providing fertile ground from which writers and filmmakers have created their own works.

Katherine's book list on inspired by Jane Austen

Katherine Cowley Why did Katherine love this book?

This is the published script for a play that I desperately want to see if it’s ever performed near me. Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) retells Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of the servants, who don costumes to act out the scenes of the story, sing karaoke to modern music, and provide hilarious and sometimes ruthless commentary on the characters, their relationship, and what it all means. While sometimes irreverent, the play manages to be both parody and homage to this great novel.

By Isobel McArthur,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Love's irrelevant - we're talking about marriage.'

This unique take on Jane Austen's beloved novel is an adaptation like no other, drawing on over two hundred years of romantic pop history, and featuring six young women with a story to tell.

You might have seen them before, emptying the chamber pots and sweeping ash from the grate; the overlooked and the undervalued making sure those above stairs find their happy ending.

Of course, these women have always been running the show - after all, 'You can't have a whirlwind romance without clean bedding' - but now the servants are also…


Book cover of Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen

Mary DeForest Author Of Jane Austen: Closet Classicist

From my list on lovers of Jane Austen.

Why am I passionate about this?

All my life I loved her novels and often reread them, but in secret. My friends—in the 1960s—scoffed at her plots. When I began my career as a classicist, I went on rereading her novels when I should've been reading academic articles. Then by a stroke of luck, I ran across a sentence in one of her letters that alluded to an obscure area of classical literature. This changed reading her novels from a guilty pleasure to scholarly research. I questioned why she and members of her family concealed her learning. The reason shocked me. The people of her day believed that women who knew Latin and Greek were sexually frigid, sexually promiscuous, man-crazy lesbians.

Mary's book list on lovers of Jane Austen

Mary DeForest Why did Mary love this book?

A best-selling novelist explains to a fictional niece why, under the shadow of the nuclear bomb we should bother with stuff written before the twentieth century, particularly with the romances of an old maid who never went anywhere. A skilled novelist herself, Weldon vividly depicts the horrors of Austen’s world that equal those of our age—famine, war, childbirth, and medical ignorance. Because she is a novelist, she is good at describing Austen’s mastery of turning social household irritations into art. As a special bonus, she recommends other novelists for readers to enjoy and aspiring novelists to learn from.

By Fay Weldon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Letters to Alice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Alice is an eighteen-year-old student and aspiring novelist with green spiky hair, a child of the modern age who recoils at the idea of reading Jane Austen. In a sequence of letters reminiscent of Jane Austen's to her own neice, 'aunt' Fay examines the rewards of such study. Not only is her correspondence a revealing tribute to a great writer - it is also an original and rewarding exploration of the craft of fiction itself.


Book cover of Bloomsbury Girls: A Novel

Erica Bauermeister Author Of No Two Persons

From my list on (re)immersing you in the magic of books.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've been book-besotted my entire life. I've read, studied, taught, reviewed, and written books. I went to “gradual” school, as John Irving calls it, earning a PhD in literature before gradually realizing that what I really loved was writing. For me, books contain the intellectual challenge of puzzles, the fun of entertainment, the ability to fill souls. They have changed my life, and the best compliments I have received are from readers who say my books have changed theirs. I read widely and indiscriminately (as this list shows) because I believe that good books are found in all genres. But a book about books? What a glorious meta-adventure. 

Erica's book list on (re)immersing you in the magic of books

Erica Bauermeister Why did Erica love this book?

Natalie Jenner sets her story of post-World War II feminism in a bookstore in England.

Three women, each of whom has proved their worth during the war years, must now face the fact that men are taking the reins once again. And yet, as Jenner makes clear, it is the women who have the intelligence, the ideas, and the skills to make this stagnant bookshop a vibrant and thriving place.

Jenner has done her research, and I love the way the setting and characters come alive, as do some real-life literary characters (always wonderful when that works). It's never a question that things will change at the shop—but how that happens makes for a delightful and satisfying read.

By Natalie Jenner,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Bloomsbury Girls as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Delightful." --People, Pick of the Week

*Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Katie Couric Media, the CBC, the Globe and Mail, BookBub, POPSUGAR, SheReads, Women.com and more!*

Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls.

Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules.…


Book cover of The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set

Susan Van Allen Author Of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

From my list on women who love Italy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am grateful to my maternal grandparents, immigrants from southern Italy, who instilled in me a love for the Bel Paese that has inspired me all my life. I began to travel to Italy 45 years ago, and after writing for television—on the staff of Everybody Loves Raymond—I turned to travel writing. I’ve written 4 books about Italian travel, along with many stories for magazines. I also design and host Golden Weeks in Italy: For Women Only tours, to give female travelers an insider’s experience of this extraordinary country.

Susan's book list on women who love Italy

Susan Van Allen Why did Susan love this book?

I have always loved visiting the city of Naples – for the great food, the rich history, and the warm locals who remind me of my southern Italian relatives. Ferrante’s novels go deep into the complexities of a female friendship that spans many decades, while also bringing to life a wide range of characters who I grew to love and truly care about, while devouring this extraordinary series.

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The complete four-volume boxed set of the New York Times–bestselling epic about hardship and female friendship in postwar Naples that has sold over five million copies.

Beginning with My Brilliant Friend, the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante follow Elena and Lila, from their rough-edged upbringing in Naples, Italy, not long after WWII, through the many stages of their lives―and along paths that diverge wildly. Sometimes they are separated by jealousy or hostility or physical distance, but the bond between them is unbreakable, for better or for worse.

This volume includes all four novels: My Brilliant Friend; The Story of…


Book cover of Jane Austen: A Family Record

Roy Adkins Author Of Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England: How Our Ancestors Lived Two Centuries Ago

From my list on Jane Austen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was brought up in Maidenhead in Berkshire, a town on the River Thames to the west of London. After studying archaeology at University College, Cardiff, I worked for many years as a field archaeologist. I met my wife, Lesley, on an excavation at Milton Keynes, and we have worked together ever since, both in archaeology and as authors of archaeology and history books. It was only after studying the Napoleonic period, which was when Jane Austen lived and wrote, that I understood the context of her novels and came to a much deeper appreciation of them.

Roy's book list on Jane Austen

Roy Adkins Why did Roy love this book?

Although we have some of Jane Austen’s letters and other writing, besides her novels, many more letters have been lost, and relatively little is known about her life. In 1913, nearly a century after her death, William and Richard Austen-Leigh (descendants of her brother James) published what was then known in a book called Life and Letters of Jane Austen. Much more material has been accumulated since, and in 1989 the work was extensively enlarged and revised by Deirdre Le Faye. It is essential reading for those who want to find out about Jane Austen’s life.

By Deirdre Le Faye,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jane Austen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is the outcome of years of research in Austen archives, and stems from the original family biography by W. and R. A. Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen: her Life and Letters. Jane Austen, A Family Record was first published in 1989, and this edition incorporates information that has come to light since then, and provides new illustrations and updated family trees. Le Faye gives a detailed account of Austen's life and literary career. She has collected together documented facts as well as the traditions concerning the novelist, and places her within the context of a widespread, affectionate and talented family…


Book cover of Jane Austen's Names: Riddles, Persons, Places

Kathleen E. Akers Author Of Law and Economics in Jane Austen

From my list on love, law, and money.

Why am I passionate about this?

The fundamental connection between law and economics rules most of the world. This is especially true in romantic relationships, whether the parties realize it or not. Being “Janites” ourselves, in addition to our day jobs of family law professor and economic consultant, we could not help but read Jane Austen and be blown away by her genius understanding of both law and economics. Moreover, the principles she draws out that govern much of her characters’ decision-making are just as applicable today in the world of online dating and Tinder. We hope our book enlightens you on law and economics in new, surprising, and romantic ways.

Kathleen's book list on love, law, and money

Kathleen E. Akers Why did Kathleen love this book?

Doody offers a comprehensive study of the names of people and places – real and imaginary – in Austen’s fiction. 

Illustrating how Austen’s creative choices reveal her virtuosic talent for riddles and puns, Doody also picks up deep stories from English history. 

Showing how Austen names signal class tensions and regional, ethnic, and religious differences, readers gain understandings of Austen’s literary techniques and cultural commentary. 

By Margaret Doody,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jane Austen's Names as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Jane Austen's works, a name is never just a name. In fact, the names Austen gives her characters and places are as rich in subtle meaning as her prose itself. Wiltshire, for example, the home county of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, is a clue that this heroine is not as stupid as she seems: according to legend, cunning Wiltshire residents caught hiding contraband in a pond capitalized on a reputation for ignorance by claiming they were digging up a "big cheese" - the moon's reflection on the water's surface. It worked. In Jane Austen's Names, Margaret Doody offers…


Book cover of The Perfect Hero

Nicky Abell-Francis Author Of Rekindling Connections: A Bittersweet Journey of Lust, Love and Choices

From my list on good old romance and humorous escapades.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love a little humor from romantic trysts or tales of woe of that one love that got away. Divulged conversations and gossip on the therapy couch can be fascinating (massage work relaxes the body and mind). Clients worldwide find choosing their ideal partner a lottery. Inspiration struck me to look more closely at how marriage choices are made through the heart or the mind. We all search for the perfect soul mate. Learning how others met was intriguing by chance or manipulated. Clearly showing, fate did seem to be at play in most cases. I love creating escapism to let your wild romantic dreams be a possibility.

Nicky's book list on good old romance and humorous escapades

Nicky Abell-Francis Why did Nicky love this book?

Adored this novel. Set in Dorset within the film industry, this is one story that, if you like a romantic genre, it's endearing. Highlighting every situation in life comes down to stereotypical characters. The drama queen, the hopeless romantic, the dashing hero. It looks at how our self-esteem and parenting affect us so much in terms of communication skills later in life.

When romance is involved, we always think we know best for ourselves and others. The obvious is never on our radar. This demonstrates the ethos of friendships: how the hero we aspire to and fall for can come in many disguises. 

For Jane Austen fans, this will intrigue you as you step into the creation of some of her characters within the storyline. It is a relaxing and enjoyable read for romancers amongst us. Lyme Regis may well be deluged with visitors. 

By Victoria Connelly,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Perfect Hero as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Have not been able to put this novel down! A lovely story brought to life with characters you want to meet. Loved every page.' Reader review

The sparkling follow-up to A Weekend with Mr Darcy from Victoria Connelly - set to become the Richard Curtis of the chick-lit world!

Die-hard romantic, Kay Ashton, uses her inheritance to open a B&B in the seaside town of Lyme Regis and is dumbstruck when the cast and crew of a new production of Persuasion descend, needing a place to stay. Kay can't believe her luck - especially when she realises that heart throb…


Book cover of Unmarriageable
Book cover of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice
Book cover of For Darkness Shows the Stars

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