I loved Sophie's World, Bev. May have to dig it out again one of these days.

Sophie's World just moved a notch higher in the TBR pile. Cindy, take note.

Thanks, guys, for the recs. It passed my usual method of "will it bore me to tears by 50 pages in?" test of opening to the middle and reading a half-page at random in the store. So I should be good to at least that point.

Something that turns me off before I ever get to being cranky about the content is the writing. I've thrown many books with promising storylines across the room because I couldn't get lost in them for the clunky sentence structure or a particularly bothersome habit of slipping a word of contemporary slang into period dialog. Or persistently using a bad grammatic habit, "Not that big OF a thing," for example. Sophie's World seems free of those, at least on a quick reconnoiter.

Or persistently using a bad grammatic habit

Loathe The Shipping News. Enjoy having subjects to my sentences. Only finished because friend gave it to me. Notes left throughout by her better than book.

Hey Kate and P-C -- you're not crazy. In looking for something else, I just stumbled across this:

Murder Ink
1 Whitehall near Water.
A branch of the original. The usual suspects, plus a nice magazine selection

Huh.

Loathe The Shipping News.

My brother! I've tried reading it three or four times, since is my mom's favorite book (or was, until I steered her towards Kavalier and Clay ). My beef with TSN was not so much the style of writing but with the fact that I just couldn't get interested in the character and his problems.

My beef with TSN was not so much the style of writing but with the fact that I just couldn't get interested in the character and his problems.

Bingo. I always say that Emma was the only book I couldn't finish, but that's because TSN was so bloody boring that I forget that I even tried to read it.

t does not-crazy dance

I'm reading The Day of the Triffids and really enjoying it. Although I have to wonder exactly how blase people really would have been about giant mysterious plants that can not only maim and blind you, but can also WALK!

As I get older, there are zillions and zillions and zillions of books I don't bother finishing.

Soon, my attention span will be so short that-- hey! What's tha?

Although I have to wonder exactly how blase people really would have been about giant mysterious plants that can not only maim and blind you, but can also WALK!

Given the crabgrass infestation I have in my front yard and the poison ivy pit in the back, I think I'd be pretty blasé about a Triffid by this point.

I'm sorely tempted to go pick up Jonathan Strange at Stacey's during lunch.

Someone give me a good reason not to do this. Because I'm sure my local bookstore will have it.