Seeing a favorite critic expound at length on a favorite author is an undersung form of literary pleasure -- as close as you can get to reading two great writers at the same time. William Deresiewicz's "A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship and the Things That Really Matter" certainly achieves that effect for this particular reader. Like Austen, Deresiewicz is lucid, principled and knows how to think as well as how to feel, without ever sacrificing one to the other. He understands that most of us want more than just an exquisite aesthetic experience from a novel. His reviews are gratifying even when you feel inclined to quarrel with them, and (unlike a surprising number of esteemed critics) he has a sense of humor. [. . .] Does reading great literature make you a better person? I've not seen much evidence for this common belief. Some of the best-read people I know are thoroughgoing jerks, and some of the kindest and noblest ve...