Author Karen Joy Fowler has seized on this premise for her fifth novel and the Sunday Book Club’s November selection, “The Jane Austen Book Club.” The novel, which wraps up the Sunday Book Club series on “Two Janes,” focuses on six members of a Southern California book club who discuss each of Jane Austen’s six novels over a period of six months.

The leader of the group, Jocelyn, is a dog breeder who never tires of matchmaking. Readers get glimpses of her sheltered early years in the opening pages:

“Jocelyn’s parents adored her so, they couldn’t bear to see her unhappy. She’d never been told a story with an unhappy ending. She knew nothing about DDT or Nazis. She’s been kept out of school during the Cuban missile crisis because her parents didn’t want her learning we had enemies.”

Jocelyn is clearly the group’s Emma Woodhouse, and the other members of the group sometimes mirror other faces from Austen novels. Bernadette is the groups oldest and perhaps most outgoing member; Jocelyn’s best friend Sylvia brings her daughter Allegra into the group; and a young French teacher named Prudie and a fortyish college instructor named Grigg fill the remaining slots.

Intertwined with the group’s discussions of Austen — whom they take very seriously — are snippets of their lives and the events that color their contributions to the book club. Fowler’s clever story moves along orderly on many levels and the dialogue flows especially well.

Upon its release this past spring, “The Jane Austen Book Club” received several nods from critics, including The New York Times’ Patricia O’Connor, who wrote that “The Jane Austen Book Club” is “a surprising novel, and there isn’t a boring line in it.”

And as for readers concerned that their unfamiliarity with Austen’s work will dampen their enjoyment of the book, Fowler gradually blends the old and the new. O’Connor promises that “Lovers of Austen will relish this book, but I envy any reader who comes to it unfamiliar with her. There’s no better letter of introduction.”

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