I just wrote out a message and my computer lost it which is probably why Jane Austen wrote with a quill. Like Elbe, I have read Northanger Abbey before but this is my first group read. My admiration for this novel increases everytime I read it. Catherine Morland at seventeen is Jane Austen's youngest heroine and NA is a book written by a very young author. We are told that Catherine "from fifteen to seventeen was in training for a heroine." And "she read such books as heroines must read." She is also primed to meet a hero. However she is presented as an anti heroine or at least an anti Gothic heroine. I find Catherine an appealing character, impressionable and lively. I would like to focus on her evolution as a person -- did she become the heroine she longed to be? I would also like to learn more about the kinds of books Catherine read as NA is a book about reading and novels. A bit later, I might enjoy trying to figure out what Jane Austen really thought of Ann Radcliffe as a writer.