Did anyone else read Steve Martin's BORN STANDING UP? Really really well done. I can totally hear his voice as I was reading it, and it made me miss his standup routines something fierce. It's sad how he's totally turned into "generic family comedy" guy (for the most part). I had to buy ALL OF ME, ROXANNE and LA STORY to remind me how much I used to like him in movies (and need to also get some of the earlier seriously goofy stuff). There doesn't seem to be anything available of his standup on DVD, tragically; I may need to find his records somewhere (I know a couple got re-released on CD).

OMG. The Sweet Valley High series is coming back. Updated for today's audience, including shrinking the twins from size 6 to size 4: [link]

I gotta say, clothing sizes have changed enough from the 1980s that a perfect size 6 from 1983 probably IS a current perfect size 4, if not a perfect size 2. I am the same size in men's Levis that I wore in high school in the late 1980s, but have gone from a women's 10-sometimes-an-8 to a solid 6.

So help me god, I want to read one or two of those...I never owned SVH as a kid--it was the sort of books we read at a relative's house.

Yeah, I thought those books sucked when I was the target audience -- my best friend read them all, and I tried one or two and went back to my Agatha Christie.

I missed the SVH fad - it was well after my time.

Susan, I thought about you a little while ago - I was watching a telenovela and they introduced an English character going by "Sir John Lancaster" and the people (in what was then Nueva Espana) kept referring to him as "Sir Lancaster" ... I kept thinking of how it would probably drive you crazy.

I "auditioned" to write for one of the SVH lines once, years ago. And then the chick who was my contact quit and moved on, and I got lost in the shuffle. I had never actually read them either.

Susan, I thought about you a little while ago - I was watching a telenovela and they introduced an English character going by "Sir John Lancaster" and the people (in what was then Nueva Espana) kept referring to him as "Sir Lancaster" ... I kept thinking of how it would probably drive you crazy.

Oh, definitely!

Incidentally, I may have finally found a satisfactory page turner--I'm three chapters along in Conn Iggulden's GENGHIS: BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE, and so far it's well-written, albeit testosteroney, even for me. Ah, well. Jo Beverley has a new release coming out, so I know I'll get to read a good romance soon.

She was a poor relation governess to her cousin's spoiled brat child but made him a model child within days. The hero was a good 15 years older than her, with prematurely steel-gray hair and slate-gray eyes, and he was all crusty and masterly until won over by her spunky good nature.

Hey! Which one is it? And which publisher?

A friend of mine recently got into romances.

As I haven't read one in... years, now, I packed up ten bags of them and delivered them to her doorstep.

Hey! Which one is it? And which publisher?

A very old Signet called THE SERGEANT MAJOR'S DAUGHTER. I think the author was Sheila Walsh.