I loved that whole series, but the first one was definitely the best.

I tried The Calculating Stars earlier this year. The pilot/airplane/operations/maintenance/airshow/flying stuff was so badly done, I rage quit about a third of the way through, never made it to space.

Sometimes, ignorance IS bliss (at least for reading).

I think I read a short story in that series but not the novels. Hm, 2.99 is still a little high for a kneejerk impulse buy, at least the day before payday...

It’s probably available at your library, since it’s the first book and several more are out. I remember enjoying the first one but never read the others!

I decided that I could take the $3 risk

ETA because what I need is more to read. I'm almost finished with Bleak House and I only had 2 books that I pre-ordered and forgot about pop onto my reader this week so my TBR pile is not quite overwhelming enough

Finished Bleak House, yay! I'm glad you said it was a soap opera before I started, Jesse, that put me in the right frame of mind. I was way more worried about that whole Jarndyce-Woodcourt-Summerson situation than the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit, but that also worked out better so all to the good. For some reason I keep wanting to call Esther Summerson "Ethel Summersby" which makes searching the text pretty frustrating, but after a rocky start when I wasn't sure I'd make it through the parts she narrates I did grow pretty fond of her. Bucket will be an excellent addition to my informal database of early detectives, quite a departure from the Dupin mold! I started watching the 2005 PBS miniseries (with Gillian Anderson) and it might be a little too This is Serious Art for me, Dickens's little winks and nods to the reader are my favorite parts, but I'm not giving up on it yet. I was hoping that the performance would clarify why everyone seems to enjoy Skimpole's company so much but they seem to have opted for less universal fondness instead. Ah well. I might give the Diana Rigg version a try also, or I might decided I've had enough of Bleak House, we'll see.

Mystery of Edwin Drood up next, although I will be taking a bit of a break to enjoy While We Were Dating and maybe some other books that have come my way...

I saw the Diana Rigg version and enjoyed it quite a bit. There's a PBS show called "Dickensian" (I think) that mixes up Dickens characters from a number of his books; I enjoyed that as well. It does give you Miss Havisham's back story, which I found interesting.

I've only ever read A Christmas Carol (which I love), Great Expectations (which was ok I guess), and now Bleak House (which I liked) so I feel like I would have to do a lot of homework for Dickensian

Well, I don't think I've read much more, but I got enough of the references to know who people were (Little Dorrit, for example).