One of my all-time favourite reads, containing as it does my favourite Austen couple: Jane and Mr. Bingley. Don't get me wrong, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy come a close second, and they are witty and entertaining beyond the rest of Austen's creations. Every time I've read this - and I've read it a lot - I am rapt with amusement. But that sweet secondary romance percolating in the background, if less flashy, is just as wonderful, and the characters more deserving.

Also worth a mention is the humour of it. P&P is, I think, heavier on the dialogue than the rest of Austen? (Understandably so, no-one wants to see Fanny Price moan any more than she already does...) But that dialogue is sparkling. And the humour is so finely drawn, and expressed in so many different ways. Mr. Collins, in all his awful presence and smug, pompously vengeful letter-writing, is worth the price of admission alone, and Mr. Bennet is hardly less entertaining, not to mention Elizabeth and all of Austen's caustic asides.

One of the greatest novels ever written, and deserves all the praise it routinely gets.