Northanger Abbey

I think modern readers will be tempted to say the style feels incomplete, but to me the stark elegance of the prose is really refreshing. Austen novels happen after you close the book because they ask a great deal of the imagination and reward you for it. It is no small feat to set up the expectation of subverting the expectations of a "gothic" novel, and yet somehow creating a mystery that keeps you turning the pages.

I loved it. Put in the time. Take a few minutes on hard sentences or paragraphs (english has changed), and it will really reward you.

I enjoyed this silly book, and I think it has spared me for some time from any motivation I might have had to read Mrs. Radcliffe or her contemporary gothic novelists. Let's not go to Northanger; 'tis a silly place.
I'm about to read Val McDermid's update on this classic, and expect I will enjoy comparing the way she'll do it with the ways I imagined Catherine and Isabella as 21st century girls.