This excerpt published in The New Yorker is drawn from "Austen Years" by Rachel Cohen, which is available for purchase as of July 21 from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The author discusses how six unexpectedly far-ranging novels carried her through eight years, two births, one death, and a changing world. Cohen is Professor of Practice in the Arts in the Program of Creative Writing in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago.