I read "Pride and Prejudice" about 5 or 6 years ago because my ex-wife likes Austen so much and I wanted to be able to talk about it with her. I gotta say, it did nothing for me. I got through the second half, or maybe the last three quarters of the book on sheer will power. I think it's definitely a woman's read.
It's actually not my favorite Austen book, although it's the most famous. What I love about Jane Austen is her biting, jaundiced view of human nature. The way she describes some of her minor characters, especially, is just too funny to me. There's something Shakespearean about the way she nails certain personality types - such that movies made from her books can be just as relevant today - because people really don't change!
Try reading Emma and watching the movie Clueless - a 90's version with Alicia Silverstone as a valley girl. Or re-read Pride and Prejudice and rent Bride and Prejudice, a modern Bollywood version. (Where else but modern India could you find a matchmaking mother as pushy as the one in Pride and Prejudice?).
I agree, the romance plotlines of her books probably wouldn't appeal so much to guys; but that's just the surface structure on which she hangs her wickedly written commentaries on human nature.
