Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel, follows the lives of two young women, one troubled, and the other really troubled. Beyond the interesting history of these woman and their relations, the book claims to get at the heart of what is really wrong with the world.

Amelia Sedley and Rebecca “Becky” Sharp attend school together. Amelia comes from a well-to-do family; Becky, not so much. Financial tragedy soon strikes Amelia’s household, bringing her down to Becky’s level. But Becky has a plan to succeed, and if she needs to take advantage of Amelia’s family, her own upper-class employer, or even peers and royals to do it, so be it.

This is a romance, and in the end, good triumphs over evil. But the book is much more than that simple outcome. As we see Becky lie, cheat, and steal to move up in society, the author repeatedly asks the question: Is it worth it? Are the vanities of life worth anything at all? Do they satisfy? Do they last? For all its questioning of the high life, you might as well be reading the Bible. But here is a moral questions for the ages, packaged in a well-written nineteenth century British entertainment.

This isn’t the only book to ask such questions. Of the half-dozen eighteenth and nineteenth century books in which I placed Vanity Fair for this reading project, all of them mention, at least in passing, the trouble of vanity and its dangerous allures. And it’s not just the individual temptations like those that John Bunyan showed in the original Vanity Fair from his book The Pilgrim’s Progress. These collected authors indicate that vanity lies at the heart of all major problems in European society, from the wants and desires of the lower classes all the way up to the construction of the royal systems that dominated British and Continental leadership of that era.

Could this warning against visiting Vanity Fair be just as relevant today? Of course; people never change. In an election year, media will be filled with just such desires. One side looks to the wealth to be had by business advancement and self-sufficiency; the other side lifts up the power and promise of a bureaucracy that can provide goodies to those who want them. Vanities still abound. But are they worth it?

(For more information on this book, visit its project page.)

I am not a Mac Fanboy. Sure, I have an iPhone, and an iPad, and I’m writing this review on a MacBook Pro. I bought them because the hardware is fast, good looking, and will last for many years. The software, while adequate, isn’t as user friendly as it appears on the surface. Come to think of it, this all describes Steve Jobs himself as presented in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple founder and CEO.

In Steve Jobs, Isaacson provides a chronological look at the life of one of the key technologists of our era. Born into a humble middle class family, Jobs quickly demonstrated his clear yet confrontational genius. A man of vision, he also drove others to near-nervous breakdowns with his in-your-face “you suck” mannerisms. In nearly every chapter, Jobs comes across as a sanctimonious, vicious, hard-hearted jerk.

And yet, he’s not. Like Apple’s software, there is a veneer of beauty and elegance that comes from the core, despite the usability issues for those needing to deal in a more direct manner with the product or the man. Like Apple’s devices, Jobs’ appearance is a marvel in design. It’s not necessarily from a natural appeal; cell phones were originally bricks of plastic with bulky components; Steve Jobs was originally a barefoot vegan with a wild mop of hair that shocked common sensibilities. But through careful design and continual improvements, Jobs and his products evolved into something that we all wanted.

Steve Jobs is a little different from other biographies I’ve read. Other than Edmund Morris in Dutch—the pseudo-first-person account of a life with Ronald Reagan—biographers whose books I’ve consumed tend to be omniscient yet distant commentators. But Isaacson is all over this work; he interjects himself into the story regularly. At first it disturbed me. But then I realized that Jobs did the same thing to me. I was content with my Windows desktop and my Motorola flip phone. But Steve wouldn’t have it. “Tim Patrick uses an iPhone,” he said, and somehow earned the right to enter my storyline.

A tremendous personality like Steve Jobs deserves a tremendous biography. Isaacson’s work on Jobs is very good. Not tremendous, perhaps, but very good in its detailed coverage of a man who preferred not to be covered in detail. The book dares to remove the custom screws holding down the cover on the Steve Jobs image. Periodically, some aspect of that inner spark in Jobs’ life twinkles through the pages, especially in the closing two or three chapters. By the end, you get a clear vision of a man with clear vision.

Wuthering Heights, the mid-nineteenth century romantic work by Emily Brontë, is pretty depressing. Even the name invokes a bad day. “Wuthering” refers to strong, gusty winds. Who would name their house after a tornado? But this is what you find in the house that bears the book’s name. The story does have a bit of a happy ending, but just enough so that you don’t pound the book to a pulp with your fist while screaming, “Why, Heathcliff, why?”

The narrator is Mr. Lockwood, staying at Thurshcross Grange, a house on the same property as Wuthering Heights. He isn’t a party to any of the events in the book, but his gossipy housekeeper, Mrs. Dean, has been there since it all began, and boy can she talk. Many years ago, when her mother worked for the Earnshaw family as a nurse, Mr. Earnshaw brought home an orphan boy during a business trip to Liverpool. Unfortunately, the family doesn’t really do the whole “care for the orphan” thing well, and the child, Heathcliff, grew into a bitter, vengeful man.

Years later, Heathcliff took his revenge, slowly working to destroy the various relationships in the family. But then there’s Catherine, Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, raised alongside Heathcliff. Can his passionate love for her keep him from ruining everyone at Wuthering Heights? Or will he put his desire for retribution above his own heart? Or will he go crazy before he can accomplish his goal?

It’s all of these. The ending is as complex as the character of Heathcliff. It’s a satisfying read, but in its role as a classic, I wonder how it is supposed to transform me. Do I relate to the rejected orphan consumed with hate? Or to young Linton, whose maltreatment leads to a life of apathy? Or to the many characters who claim to love those near to them, but only do so until minor troubles disturb daily life?

I think I most relate to Mr. Lockwood, the narrator, whose interest in the characters remains only as long as the story seems interesting. When everything is resolved, he departs Wuthering Heights as if it never impacted him. Even Heathcliff grows tired by the end, telling Mrs. Dean, concerning his plans for revenge, that he has “lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction.” While the storytelling was dramatic, and the depictions of revenge were heartless and cruel, by the end I felt little remaining of the story, as if a wuthering wind had passed through my thoughts.

(For more information on this book, visit its project page.)

Is it possible for two cultures thrown together on a single landmass to mingle peacefully? It is one of the core questioned asked by Sir Walter Scott in his 1820 novel Ivanhoe. But before you ponder that question too much, get ready for adventure!

The story takes place in the late twelfth century. King Richard the Lionhearted, upon his return from the Crusades, falls into the hands of the Duke of Austria. Prince John, Richard’s hapless brother, has usurped his throne, but things aren’t going well. There are financial concerns, Robin Hood and merry men are running rampant in the forests, and the tensions are high between the native Saxons and the recent Norman conquerors.

The plot details involve love-hate relationships that cut across racial and religious boundaries. The Christian Knight Templar Brian, a Norman, eyes the Jewess Rebecca, herself drawn to the Saxon Ivanhoe. Cedric, a Saxon freeman, has pledged his ward Rowena in marriage to Athelstane, in an attempt to keep the Saxon leaders united against the Normans. Yet she loves Ivanhoe, Cedric’s son, who has been recently disowned by his father for following the Norman king (Richard) to Palestine. As a Jew, Rebecca’s father, Isaac, is hated by all major ethnic groups in England, and yet the nation’s financial woes require that John look to the Jewish community for support.

All of these conflicting ties nearly blow up, and one castle actually does. And who is this mysterious Black Knight that is able to best all other knights in their contests of strength and valor? And when will King Richard ever return and right all the wrongs? Or has he come already?

Ivanhoe is primarily a romance. Adventure, chivalry, fair maidens, jousting battles, and castles with towers and moats appear on nearly every page. But much of the storyline surrounds the conflicts between Saxon and Norman, and their united distaste for the Jews. Still, this is a romance, and the ending is happy. In the last chapter, Scott reminds the well-read follower that English—that strange mix of Norman and Saxon tongues—became the official court language just 150 years after the events in the book. And history shows how King Richard, upon his return, decreed protection for Jewish citizens. For Scott, we can all just get along, but it might take a few knights in shining armor to reach that goal.

(For more information on this book, visit its project page.)

Oliver Goldsmith’s mid-eighteenth century novel The Vicar of Wakefield was one of the most widely read books of its era. Filled with Victorian romanticism and dripping with happy endings, the book had a major influence on the European novels that followed it. Two other books in the Well-Read Man project even mention it by name: Frankenstein and Middlemarch.

Charles Primrose is a rich and happy vicar. Despite his focus on the humble spiritual life (including a fixation on the question of whether Anglican windowed priests should be allowed to remarry), his family enjoys the comforts of upper-class living. That changes when a dishonest merchant flees the country, taking nearly all of the family’s wealth with him. Reduced to poverty, the vicar’s family moves to a farm in another part of the country.

While there, the family members have experiences both good and bad, but mostly bad. Each new day brings fresh calamities, some caused by their own foolishness, but many caused by the selfishness and vices of those around them. Eventually (spoiler alert!), all of their troubles are wiped away, and they live happily ever after.

Or do they? Despite their restored wealth, the family will still need to battle with an aspect of life that shows up repeatedly in many of the novels of the day: vanity. This focus on self and its associated prideful spirit is referred to repeatedly in the book, and it also takes center stage in the works of other European authors, from John Bunyan to Jane Austin.

Despite this explicit warning against vanity, The Vicar of Wakefield is primarily a joy to read. The characters are vivid and quirky, the vicar as narrator is never at a loss for something interesting to say, and his upbeat attitude, even in the face of tragedy, keeps a smile on your face throughout the entire novel. I highly recommend the book. If it was good enough for Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott, it is good for the modern well-read reader.