B&N has a really long sample from Night Circus available in ebook, and I kinda forgot I hadn't bought the whole thing yet, I was enjoying myself so much.

Well played, teaser, well played.

Does Amazon let you get samples, or does it just do the "look inside this book" thing? It occurs to me (d'oh!) that you don't need to have an e-book to take advantage of this--you just need to set up an account and install the app on your computer. Then you can read the first few pages of, well, just about anything that's also sold as an ebook if you want more info to make up your mind. It's not like you can't go buy the paper version afterwards.

I love Over Sea, Under Stone. Classic quest book.

Does Amazon let you get samples

Yup. They're like a drug dealer -- first one's free, yo.

On the Kindle, it's samples. I don't know if they're the same pages as the "Look inside this book" pages on the website.

Many Amazon books have the first chapter free. I think it's up to the publisher. I downloaded the first chapter of Leviathan Wakes, which is getting billed as a Firefly-esque space opera set in the asteroid belt.

I do not understand why they keep assigning the world's most depressing books to an age group already prone to depression.

It's a shame that Roller Skates never seemed to acquire literary heft. Being one of the best books ever doesn't seem to be a criterion. Lucinda is a child of privilege, but the book is about her discovering that others are less privileged and standing up for them. Also, it set me up to love Shakespeare.

Island of the Blue Dolphins? One of Octavia Butler's books?

It doesn't have a female protagonist, and it's a completely cliched suggestion from me, but how about Something Wicked This Way Comes ?

Mara of the Nile?

Actually, that's not a bad idea. What about some of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's stuff? I was reading her in 7th grade.

I loved the depressing books! Except The Red Pony, which I hated. It was boring and bleak. All the books I hated reading in high school were either two terse (Steinbeck and Hemingway) or too wordy (Hawthorne). I seriously hated both The Red Pony and The Old Man and the Sea more than any other books I had ever read. And I was not too fond of The Scarlet Letter.

I did LOVE Silas Marner and all Thomas Hardy, though.

Speaking of The Night Circus: art cards inspired by it. [link]

I may be purchasing them when I get home.