A writer spent years reading only the work of Jane Austen. She learned a lot about herself.

Should you read Rachel Cohen’s thoughtful “memoir in five novels,” “Austen Years,” if you are not up on your Austen? Having just done so, I wish I had not, and, thus, hereby advise you to read at least four if not all six of Jane Austen’s novels before you attempt Cohen’s extended meditation on them, and do not try to get away with watching the movie versions.