I just completed my, what 12th? 6th? 20th?, re-reading of Northanger Abbey, the book that hooked me on Jane Austen. If you've not read her before, start with this one.

It is so funny. It is well-known that Miss Austen wrote this early in her life, and that it was not published until after her death. Perhaps because she was young and still learning, she could indulge herself with hilarity. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph -- almost no one is immune to her rapier wit. The main character, Catherine, is described as "almost pretty;" her benefactress Mrs. Allen has "neither beauty, genius, accomplishment, nor manner;" and even the noble Henry Tilney is lumped among those "reasonable and well-informed" men who desire nothing "more in women than ignorance."

At the same time it is an astute coming of age novel about a sheltered young woman experiencing her first taste of life outside her family and friends. Because her home has been a happy and loving one, she knows right from wrong and is able to navigate society's hypocrisy without too much heartache, a great proof for happy and loving families. (And a great foil for the novel's last line: ". . . I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.")