one was about Lydia Bennett

Really? Man, you could not pay me to read an entire novel about Lydia. She's a great, delicious trainwreck of a secondary character in Elizabeth's and Jane's stories, and P&P would be a markedly lesser novel without her sheer thoughtless awfulness, but I literally cannot imagine an entire novel about her being anything but agony. She hasn't even got the cleverness and animal cunning to make a great antiheroine like Lizzie Eustace or Becky Sharp.

JZ - yup. I remember it actually getting pretty good reviews ... but if you really disliked her, then I'd say avoid it.

Good goddamn, I had no idea there were so many P&P sequels/riffs.

I've read one of those called Pemberly by (I think) Andrea Barrett. She also wrote a follow-up on Sense and Sensibility called The Third Sister, about the youngest daughter whose name I can't remember offhand.

Margaret.

I just waded into the pool of reviewing books by reviewing Beyond Heaving Bosoms- The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels. [link]

Aside from the fact that I consider Sarah and Candy to be friends, this is a really wonderful book that talks about the good, the bad, and the mullet-y within romance and the romance community.

I can't wait to read that, Barb.

Book recommendations! I had a Sherman Alexie weekend: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Flight. The first book is fantastic and lovable, and the second is very good.

My apologies if this has been discussed already, but I'm halfway through Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I should keep reading (and this is aunque hablo español, so it's not the Dominican slang that's bothering me).

Did anyone else have trouble getting into it during the first half and then find themselves hooked for the last half?